


Solid Ground

by gaelicspirit



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Afghanistan, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Brotherhood, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Natural Disasters, Team as Family, potentially unrealistic battle scenarios
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 18:15:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 63,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17812988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaelicspirit/pseuds/gaelicspirit
Summary: Set post 3x02. Angus MacGyver lives on a fault line, constantly prepared for people he loves to leave him. It takes his world literally falling apart for Mac to find solid ground.Or…the time the Phoenix team endured an earthquake and Jack recalled a particularly gruesome tour he and Mac barely survived.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer/Warning:** Nothing you recognize is mine. Including the odd movie and/or TV show line. I like to work in quotes now and again. And I still write long chapters, so if you choose to read…settle in. Also, fair warning. This one is going to be angsty, ya’ll. Especially considering where we are with certain characters in the canon story line. 
> 
> In episode 3x02, when recalling what Worthy means to him, Jack tells Mac, _“Last time I saw Worthy, we’d just gotten back from a tough rotation. And if anyone knows what I’m talking about, it’s you. It was a gruesome deployment.”_ That stuck with me, and I realized I needed to turn it into a story. I played with the timeline a smidge, so for the sake of this story, let’s just all agree that there were a few weeks between episodes 3x02 and 3x03. 
> 
> Finally, I am not in the military, and though I have researched, I will most likely get things wrong. Not only that, but the situations I put these characters in are fictional, imaginary, and based on what I’ve seen in movies and read in books. If you are in the military, please know that anything that is inaccurate is not meant to be an insult. However, if you’re reading fanfic, I'm guessing you probably already understand everything is for the sake of the story.
> 
> My thanks to my friend and sanity-reader, **ThruTerrysEyes**. And to **Pandigirl19** who is ever vigilant in her inspiration. And finally, many thanks to **SarieVenea** , not only for her service, but also for endeavoring to help me keep the military jargon and references as accurate as possible. You are aces, my friend.

_“The only thing that makes battle psychologically tolerable is the brotherhood among soldiers. You need each other to get by.”_  
\- Sebastian Junger

***

 

 **Los Angeles**  
Present Day  
0200  
_Matty_

Matilda Webber was no stranger to loss.

Both personally and professionally, she’d learned to come to terms with the lesson that losing people—those she loved, those she trusted, those she was responsible for—was part of the journey. It came with the job. It was a risk she knowingly took every time she sent agents into the field.

Knowing loss was an ever-present shadow waiting just out of her field of vision didn’t make it any easier to accept. Nor did it give her the words she knew her team—people she loved, trusted, was responsible for—needed to cope with loss of their own. If anything, watching each of them deal in their own ways made her pain that much more acute.

Losing Jill had hit Matty harder than she could have anticipated. She imagined herself ready to receive word that any of her agents in the field hadn’t made it out safely. But she’d never prepared herself to lose someone she purposely kept close, kept safe.

It changed something inside her.

Changed how she connected to her team. Changed how she assigned missions. Changed how she pushed back on Oversight’s orders.

Over the last week, ever since Jack Dalton and Angus MacGyver had returned safely—albeit by the skin of their teeth—from Dalton’s self-imposed rescue mission in Honduras, Matty had taken to keeping herself slightly separated from the team.

She needed to step back, widen her view so that she could see the whole board.

Something was changing, causing a shift in the tenuous balance she’d created across this small band of capable misfits. It started with MacGyver’s sudden departure three months ago. It had continued with Jack’s quiet downward spiral in Mac’s absence. It had crashed into painful reality with Jill’s murder.

And they weren’t over it, none of them. Each of them was dealing with the damage in their own ways.

For the most part.

She’d seen an uncertainty, almost a fragility hovering in Mac’s blue eyes when she’d commemorated his official return to the Phoenix Foundation by handing him a new Swiss Army knife to replace the one he’d lost. The kid would be true to his word when he said he was back in; she’d never known him not to be, and she’d been watching him for over half of his life.

But being back at Phoenix was weighing on him, that much she could see. As brilliant as Mac was, he’d never really been given coping skills to deal with emotional upheaval in his life. She’d seen it when his grandfather had died. She’d seen it when he’d returned from Afghanistan.

And she was seeing it now as he tried to make the right choice in the wake of an incredible shock: the knowledge that the man he’d thought abandoned him was near him all along.

The role Matty played in James MacGyver’s betrayal was not something she took lightly, and as a result, she found herself pulling back. Being careful. Working to keep herself disconnected from the family her team had created so that she was able to do her job: send them into dangerous situations. Not buffer them from the realities of the world in which she lived.

She was fairly certain the only one who’d picked up on this tactic was Jack Dalton.

The man played the fun-loving goof-ball, but she’d known him for over a decade. She’d seen him navigate some treacherous waters both in the field and in his mind and the minds of his team. He was savvy, skilled, and missed very little when it came to people he cared about.

She’d never openly admit it, but she was glad to fall into that category. Even if it meant she couldn’t hide as much from him as she’d like.

Matty swiped her access card to enter the main doors of the Phoenix Foundation, the quiet _pop_ of the lock as it gave way a welcomed sound as she made her way through the dimly-lit halls to the darkened War Room.  The building was quiet at this time of night; there was always someone in the observation room, but they ran a skeleton crew when an Op wasn’t in process. Tapping the glass to trigger the frost and shield the interior of the War Room from view, she turned on the lights, Jack Dalton’s recent phone call still echoing in her ears.

_“It’s too soon to break us up again.”_

Jack’s late-night check-in, several hours earlier, wasn’t his typical disgruntlement. Matty had heard all the adolescent-type excuses for why he should or should not be on an Op, protesting anything from the location, to the amenities, to the actual mission itself. Sometimes she wondered if he did it just because she’d come to expect it from him.

But he wasn’t just complaining this time. He wasn’t just worried.

This was something deeper. This was…fear.

 _“You’re not being broken up,”_ she’d sighed. _“The Saltillo Op was better suited for your skill set.”_

 _“Bullshit,”_ Jack snapped. _“This is Oversight twisting the damn screws.”_

Matty didn’t want him to be right. But the timing was a bit too convenient.

James MacGyver had been livid when he’d found out that Mac had joined Jack in Honduras without his permission or knowledge. There hadn’t been time to take any action; the day after they returned to the states, practically the same time as Jack’s former Delta team had left Los Angeles to return to their homes, the team had been sent to Belize to retrieve plans for a potential biochemical weapon.

However, the minute they’d returned from Belize—before they’d even debriefed with Matty—Oversight sent Jack to Saltillo, Mexico, to stop a gun-runner from making a huge sale of military-grade weapons. The team had barely dropped their packs in the Phoenix hanger before another crew was collecting Dalton and getting him back in the air.

Jack had called her the moment he’d landed in Saltillo and found a secure line.

 _“Check on Mac,”_ he’d entreated.

 _“He’ll be debriefed in the morning,”_ Matty had snapped, somewhat irritated at being woken up. More irritated that her team had been usurped by her boss.

 _“Not just a debrief,”_ Jack insisted. _“That’s…limited. Look past the facts.”_

She knew what he meant.

Mac was excellent at compartmentalizing and quieting outward displays of distress. He’d been doing it since he was young—since his father had walked away from him without a word. She’d watched with varying degrees of disquiet as the boy she’d been assigned to observe channeled his pain, his anger, his confusion, turning him into a young man who was a thunderstorm bottled up in a diamond-hard gentleness.

When life didn’t fit into an easily-explained resolution, Mac would often punish himself with long runs, hard workouts, late nights, and long hours.

 _“Something’s not right with him, Matty,”_ Jack pressed.

When it came to knowing his partner—especially _this_ partner—Jack Dalton’s instincts were unmatched. Matty had come to depend on them, to listen to them when she found herself in the rare instance of being uncertain. Jack hadn’t been her first recommendation when asked for a soldier to pair up with the young scientist she’d been observing for seven years, but there wasn’t a moment since that she regretted her ultimate decision.

The bond Mac and Jack developed went beyond partners. Beyond brothers. There was a connection between these two—a dependency, almost—that Matty hadn’t seen often in her years in the CIA, in dealing with soldiers, or with government operatives.

Jack sought a purpose, Mac an anchor.

The result was two men who were no longer whole without the other in their life. As though without one, the other would simply cease to exist. At least in the way she knew them now.

It frightened her a bit.

 _“I was too…hurt and pissed before to see it,”_ Jack had continued, and Matty could practically see the man rubbing the back of his head as he paced, berating himself and doing the one thing he could think of: calling the only other person he trusted to watch out for Mac. _“I should have…I should have been paying more attention, but then there was Worthy, and I just…. I missed it.”_

There had been something almost broken in Mac’s eyes the night Jack’s old Delta team celebrated the successful rescue of Worthy and return home. He’d masked it well with a familiar grin, sitting near Jack, listening quietly to the older soldiers telling stories.

But she’d seen the shadows shifting in those blue eyes. She’d seen the way his gaze would drift into the middle distance, as if he weren’t truly present in that moment. She’d seen a tightness draw his skin close to the bone, giving him a haunted look.

And she knew Jack had seen it, too.

 _“He’s stronger than you’re giving him credit for,”_ Matty had protested in reply to Jack’s worry. _“He just needs some time—”_

 _“That’s not it. You know it,”_ Jack countered. _“I_ know _you know it. You think I don’t know you’ve watched that kid grow up? Don’t tell me you’re not worried.”_

Matty exhaled slowly, turning on the iPad she’d left on the table next to a bowl of paperclips that had remained a fixture of the War Room, even while Mac was gone. She began scrolling through the files.

 _“He’s in the hurt locker, Matty,”_ Jack had said, a rough edge to his voice she didn’t often hear. _“And I…I gotta help him.”_

When Mac left them, Jack’s natural tendency to worry about his partner had escalated to extreme levels. He hadn’t slept; he’d practically lived in the War Room, watching the satellite feed, keeping tabs on Mac’s whereabouts. But Matty hadn’t been worried about the younger MacGyver.

Matty had been worried about Jack.

The man she’d first met was on edge, a few staggering steps from walking away from everything. But when Oversight asked her for a recommendation for young Angus MacGyver’s Overwatch, she’d known that despite her personal history with the man, Jack was the one. Jack’s skill as a soldier, and his ability as a CIA Operative, overpowered any concern she’d had for his mental well-being.

What she hadn’t realized at the time was that protecting the brilliant EOD Tech had healed something in Jack Dalton. It had given him something to pivot from, something to keep his compass calibrated.

Losing Mac—even temporarily—had sent him reeling, back to that _other_ man. The one on edge, compass spinning as if it had been set on top of a magnet.

Jack had also dealt with his share of loss over the years, but what Matty hadn’t fully appreciated was the level of dependency Jack had in MacGyver. She knew when Mac left that the kid would find his way; he’d had to do it before. If no one was actively trying to kill him, he’d find balance on his own.

He’d climb inside his head and live in comfort and security, alone. Letting people in, trusting them, allowing himself to depend on them… _that_ was Mac’s struggle. It had been quite the opposite for Jack.

Matty’s father had once told her that humans don’t mind duress—in fact they thrive on it. What they mind is not feeling necessary. For Jack, Matty knew, it had been more than simply missing Mac. It was more like Mac was missing _from_ Jack.

Without Mac to protect, Jack lost his purpose. And, she now realized, they’d almost lost Jack.

In theory, having Mac come home, return to the team, was the solution they’d all needed. But once more, the impact of one man’s decision fifteen years ago was affecting her team today. Because no one—including Matty—fully appreciated the damage Mac’s father had visited upon him.

Not just by leaving him all those years ago, but also by coming back into his life and assuming he had a place.

 _“I’ll check on him,”_ she’d promised. _“You just finish that Op and get your ass back here.”_

_“How about telling your boss not to take me away from our boy again, while you’re at it?”_

_“Don’t press your luck, Dalton,”_ Matty had groused before hanging up.

After that call, sleep was elusive.

It hadn’t taken her long to decide to come into the Phoenix. She first checked the Medical logs to see if MacGyver had reported in as instructed—shaking her head in resignation when she discovered that he had not—she decided to prep for his debrief. Selecting the file she’d been looking for on the iPad, she sat back as a video opened on the large wall monitor.

At first the image was grainy, bouncing in and out of focus, but then it settled. Matty clicked a button on the small remote left forgotten on the table and the screen split, displaying two viewpoints.

Several months ago—before Mac had discovered the truth about his father—Oversight had commissioned special tactical vests with built-in body cameras. The idea had been to both study tactical maneuvers for future Ops and to be able to better monitor agents in the field, supplementing the reporting each agent was tasked with upon mission completion. It wasn’t always convenient, but whenever possible, Matty had dictated the team wear the camera-ready tactical vests.

The cameras were built into the vest center-mass, the angle wide enough she could see head to waist of another person standing directly in front of the lens. The feed was automatically uploaded to a Phoenix server via a sophisticated encryption Riley Davis manufactured. Matty was confident that the files could not be easily hacked, but she’d made it a habit to move them within 24 hours of a completed mission.

Allowing the Phoenix Foundation to get infiltrated once was bad enough. She had zero intention of a repeat performance.

“…just outside of Banque Viejo del Carmen,” Mac was saying as the mic triggered. “Riley said the plans are in a safe deposit box inside the bank.”

Matty’s eyes shifted between the split-screen view of Jack’s camera to Mac’s. She heard a clip being slid into Jack’s Beretta, a round chambered.

“Simple in and out,” Jack commented.

“Except for the fact that the bank has one of the most robust security systems in the city—not to mention it’s supposedly heavily-guarded,” Mac muttered, Jack’s camera catching his profile.

Mac rolled his bottom lip against his teeth, worrying the skin there as he mentally worked through their next steps. Matty imagined she could see bubbles blossom and burst above Mac’s head like carbonated thoughts.

“We just survived a small army of mercenaries,” Jack bragged, Mac’s camera tilting slightly as the younger man pivoted to face his partner. “What’s a few guards?”

“Well, _a_ …we survived because Matty managed to save our asses,” Mac reminded him, “and, _b_ …we had a lot more guys with us in Honduras.”

“Since when have we needed more than just you and me, partner?” Jack’s grin was clear in his voice as Mac’s camera shifted away.

Matty watched the footage as the two men temporarily misappropriated, as Mac would say, a truck, Mac’s camera going a blurry dark as he slid beneath the dash to hotwire it before sliding to the passenger seat. Jack climbed behind the wheel and for some time all Matty saw was the landscape of rural Belize.

She listened, though. _Look past the facts._

“Your team get back home okay?” Mac was asking.

“Yep,” Jack replied. “Checked in with Worthy this morning. He was happy to be back with his kid, safe and sound.”

“You did a good thing there, Jack,” Mac said quietly.

“You’d’ve done the same for me, bud.” Jack’s voice was matter-of-fact. “You have, in fact. Like…just a few weeks ago.”

Mac was quiet, the recording picking up nothing but the loose rattle of the truck’s frame and rumble of the engine. After several minutes, Jack spoke up.

“What on your mind, brother?”

“Nothing.”

Jack huffed. “Well, I know _that’s_ not true.”

Matty smirked, listening.

“What do you mean?” Mac replied, and even Matty could hear the edge in his tone.

“You got two kinds of quiet,” Jack revealed. “You got the _I’m mentally solving world hunger_ kind and you’ve got the _I’m getting lost inside my head_ kind.”

Mac didn’t respond. Matty watched as the camera on Jack’s feed shifted so that she could see Mac’s profile. Her first instinct was to mentally admonish the man to keep his eyes on the road. Her second was to examine her young agent’s features when Mac shot a look over toward Jack, frowning at the scrutiny.

Looking now, she realized what she was seeing had been present for some time. If she had to guess, it began the moment James MacGyver stepped into the small village where Mac had been hiding. It was certainly present from the moment Matty had shown up to officially welcome him back into the fold, after the former Delta team had returned from Honduras.

Shadows lingered beneath Mac’s blue eyes, evidence of sleepless nights. Although strong, he seemed thin, his face lined with the strain of one constantly on alert.

“Mac?”

Mac looked back toward the road and Jack’s camera shifted again so that all Matty could see was the steering wheel, dash, and wavering horizon.

“You ever think about doing that?” Mac asked.

Matty narrowed her eyes.

“Doing what?” Jack asked.

“Something like what Worthy did. Y’know…re-upping. Heading back downrange.”

Matty tilted her head in concern. There was a quality to Mac’s voice as he referred to being deployed in Afghanistan…a kind of waver that spoke of uncertainly. Fear. Like a kid asking if their closet had been checked for monsters.

“Why the hell would I do something like that?” Jack asked, incredulous.

Mac was quiet for a beat. “Just…you had this whole other life before my dad assigned you to me, and I…,” he tapered, exhaling slowly. “Never mind.”

“Naw, you don’t ask a question like that and then wave it off.”

“Really, it’s nothing,” Mac protested. “I…it’s stupid. Let’s just drop it.”

“What’s going on with you, kid?” Jack’s camera shifted from the steering wheel to catch Mac’s profile before rotating back.

“Nothing. I’m good,” Mac replied.

“Well, you don’t _sound_ good, Mac,” Jack pointed out.

Mac’s camera shifted as though the younger agent was trying to get away from his partner in the confines of the cab of the truck.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Mac muttered.

“How about the truth, want to give that a test drive?”

Mac was quiet once more.

“How’ve you been sleeping?” Jack tried.

“On my back, mostly.”

Matty shook her head, practically hearing the grind of gears in Jack’s head.

“Fine,” Jack sighed. “You want to play it that way? I can go all day, man.”

Mac didn’t take the bait—didn’t even try for some tension-killing humor. Matty frowned.

Their rhythm was off. As if they were still finding their balance. So often she’d observed with barely-suppressed admiration as the two men moved as though they breathed for each other, reading intent with a simple glance, offering aid before trouble was even present.

In this moment, though, she felt Jack reaching and Mac drawing away.

A chime sounded and Matty watched Mac check the GPS on his phone. “Bank’s about ten more miles to the west of us,” Mac informed his partner. “Looks like there’s an arroyo where we can stash the truck.”

Jack didn’t reply. That was odd. He always had something to say. Matty frowned, eyes darting between the two feeds. What was she missing?

_He’s in the hurt locker, Matty…and I…I gotta help him._

The extended quiet between the two men was like a held breath. Matty felt herself leaning forward, anxious for something to see other than the horizon, something to hear that wasn’t the rattle of the truck.

“I shouldn’t have let you leave,” Jack said suddenly, his voice seeming to bleed. Matty flinched from the sound, watching as Mac shifted in his seat to face his partner.

“What?” Mac bleated, the camera shifting as he reached out to brace himself against the dash as the truck hit a rough patch of road. Jack didn’t slow down. “What are you—”

“I keep thinking about it, and I…,” Jack paused. “I thought I was doing the right thing, giving you space. I mean, finding out that your dad wasn’t missing was…. Not to mention the fact that he’s been our _boss_ all this time.”

Matty felt a pang in her chest, the familiar ache of not knowing echoing in her heart. She knew better than most what Mac experienced, what it felt like to try to go through life accepting uncertainty. Trying not to worry, trying not to fear, trying to forget.

 _Forgetting someone you loved is like trying to remember someone you never met_ , Matty remembered her father telling her, a long time ago. Those words now chased emotional evidence through her whole being.

“So, yeah,” Jack continued with an uncomfortable sigh. “You needed a chance to catch your breath. But…I shoulda gone with you. Or kept you from leaving. ‘Cause I think letting you go just…make you feel more alone.”

Mac didn’t move, his camera staying steady on Jack. Matty watched as Jack lifted his chin, his eyes on the road, a muscle coiling along his jawline. His entire body was a clenched fist.

“I didn’t give you much choice,” Mac offered, his tone finally resembling the give she was accustomed to hearing when he spoke with Jack.

Jack lifted a shoulder. “I’m your Overwatch, bud,” he said softly.

“You _were_ my Overwatch,” Mac corrected, “downrange. Now, you’re my partner.”

“Afghanistan, Los Angeles, Cairo…it’s no different,” Jack argued.

Mac sighed. “It feels different.”

“Point is,” Jack concluded, his voice shaking as they bounced over the uneven ground, “I shoulda seen you climb inside that head of yours.”

The GPS in Mac’s hand chimed again, and Mac lifted it up. Matty saw the marker blinking on a blurred screen image.

“Two more miles,” Mac said, the mission taking precedence over any emotional reveal.

He reached out again to brace himself on the dash as the truck rattled, Jack taking a sharp left toward what Matty could only surmise was the arroyo Mac had mentioned earlier.

_“Heads up, you two.”_

She startled, hearing her own voice over their comms. Hilariously, the cameras she was watching immediately focused on Jack and Mac’s faces as they exchanged a glance.

_“You will have less than ten minutes to get in, get the plans, and get out before bank security notices a glitch in their systems.”_

“It sounds so simple when she says it,” Jack muttered, glancing over at Mac.

Matty saw Mac give him a grin, one that both hid everything and exposed everything, depending on who was looking at the time.

“We’re on it, Matty,” Mac replied, reassuring her.

 _“Clock starts the minute Riley gives you the signal,”_ Matty heard herself remind them.

Jack halted the truck in the shade of several mahogany trees. Matty watched as the two agents exited the truck, their boots sinking in the sand that edged the arroyo. Jack muttered some good-natured complaints about sand getting into his boots, followed by Mac’s scoff that he should be used to it, and they set off across the hard-packed earth of the arroyo.

Reaching another shaded area, they started running at a crouch toward a tree line across from the bank at the edge of town, Mac following Jack. They’d landed in Belize just before dawn and the sunrise was now gilding the horizon as they plastered themselves against the side of the brick building, catching their breath.

The town was quiet—which was both good and bad, Matty knew. She found it extraordinary that she held her breath while one camera showed Mac picking the lock, listening for Riley’s cue that she’d cut power to the security system, while the other camera caught Jack’s forearms as he held his gun at ready position.

She knew how this ended.

She knew exactly what her agents had done to complete the mission. And yet she was anxious for them. Anxious for Mac, just as she’d been every time she’d watched him through a lens of a camera since the kid was twelve years old.

“C’mon, bud,” Jack was whispering. “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast, you copy?”

“Copy,” Mac replied, moving in sync with his partner as Jack cleared the room ahead of him.

Matty wondered what James MacGyver thought as he observed his son falling so naturally back into the military lingo that he’d picked up during the time when his partnership—his brotherhood—with Jack Dalton had been cemented. James often acted as though he wanted his son anywhere but next to the former Delta soldier…and yet it was his decision to pair them up in the first place.

“Six minutes, Mac,” Jack said on the feed, drawing Matty’s focus back to the split view in front of her.

She could see Jack facing the interior of the empty bank, Mac facing a series of safety deposit boxes. She forced herself to breathe. Inhale to live, exhale to execute.

“Uh, Jack…?” Mac said, his nimble fingers skimming the edge of the box from which they were to extract the plans. “We got a problem.”

“We’re about to have more than one,” Jack muttered, rotating so that his camera picked up Mac’s slim back. “Let me guess—plans are missing?”

Mac’s blond head tipped to the side. “Box has a trip wire.”

“They booby-trapped the safety deposit box?” Jack’s tone was incredulous.

“Looks like,” Mac replied, his voice fading slightly as his fingers found a wire, following it to the latch on the box.

“Can you…y’know…?”

“Un-booby-trap it?” Mac said, a smirk in his tone. Matty felt her lips play along. “Yeah, it’s a simple enough design.”

“Well, get on it, Hoss, ‘cause our hourglass is running out of sand.”

Matty shifted her eyes from watching Mac’s hands make quick work of the wired box to watching a black car pull up in front of the bank. She knew this was where the Op went south, knew that both agents got to the exfil. But watching it was entirely different from the usual twice-removed recount of a debrief, or the disjointed audio she often got over their comms.

“Got the plans,” Mac called, but Matty’s eyes were with Jack on the black car and the five men bearing large weapons exiting the vehicle.

“Great, but, uh…,” Jack called back, “we got a little problem out here.”

Mac joined his partner. “Where the hell did they come from?”

Matty wanted to know the answer to that as well.

“This place got a back door?” Jack asked, already moving, Mac on his heels.

They flattened themselves against the wall, cameras picking up the back entrance and three more men closing in.

“Shit,” Jack muttered.

“These aren’t guards, Jack,” Mac whispered. Matty could see clearly through Mac’s camera—Jack’s currently blocked by his forearms as he held his weapon at the ready. The men wore ski masks, dressed all in black. “This is a robbery.”

“Well, that’s just _perfect_ ,” Jack growled. One arm moved from in front of the camera and Matty heard Jack shift his tone. “Riley, you copy?”

 _“I’m here,”_ Riley confirmed through their comms.

“When I tell you, I want you to make this place real noisy, you get me?”

 _“You want me to trigger the security alarm?”_ Riley asked, surprised. Matty remembered watching the young girl’s face fold into a frown as she monitored the situation from the War Room.

“Security, fire, tornado, whatever. Just light this place up with sound,” Jack ordered.

Mac’s camera rotated so that Matty could now see the front of the bank, Jack’s camera on the back. There was a total of eight men clustered around the two doors. Matty could see they were trying to pick the lock, not yet having realized that the front was already open.

“Jack….” Mac’s voice was tight.

“You got the plans secure?” Jack asked him.

“Yes,” Mac replied.

“Okay, stay on my six,” Jack ordered him. “I’m getting us out of here.”

Matty could imagine what Jack was thinking—there was no way he could protect Mac from both angles, and there was some heavy firepower coming their way. Mentally, she catalogued what they’d been able to pick up from the comms during the Op, unconsciously bracing herself for when shit hit the fan.

Mac turned back around so that his camera was facing the rear of the bank, and Matty saw Jack’s left hand reach out and grab hold of the younger agent’s TAC vest, pulling him along as he advanced toward the back door. Just then a shout sounded from behind them and Jack bellowed into the comms.

“Riley, _now_!”

Matty winced as the security alarm began to scream over the mic and flinched as her agents dove for cover when the men breaking into the front of the bank began to fire. Jack’s plan half-way worked: the three men at the back door scattered the minute the alarm went off, but the five at the front surged forward.

Shouting at Mac to get the hell behind him, Jack rotated and returned fire.

It was hard to keep track of the tilting, stuttering images on the split screen. She could see Jack’s arms, watch him dart quickly from behind the desk he’d tucked himself behind as he returned fire. She could see the bank of safety deposit boxes in front of Mac but couldn’t figure out what the younger agent was doing…until she saw a cluster of wires gripped in his slim fingers.

“Jack!” Mac shouted. “Go out the back!”

“What are you—” Jack shifted from his crouch so that he was facing Mac and Matty could see that the former EOD Tech held the booby-trap bomb in his hand.

“Go out the back,” Mac repeated. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Two bullets ricocheted off the desktop causing Jack to duck before he cursed and returned fire. Matty’s eyes darted frantically between Mac’s camera—watching as the agent rewired what, to her, looked like a ‘90’s era cell phone—and Jack’s camera as the man ejected a spent clip and drove home a new one.

“I’m not leaving you here,” Jack declared.

“I know,” Mac replied, twisting a wire and pressing his thumb down on a button, a bit like a dead-man’s switch. “I’ll be on your six, just go!”

Through Jack’s camera, Matty could see Mac poised, balanced in a crouch on the balls of his feet, one arm cocked back and prepared to throw.

“This is going to blow as soon as it hits,” Mac informed him.

“Son of a bitch,” Jack growled, aiming at the back door. He fired twice, blowing the glass apart and opening an escape route for them. “You better be _right_ behind me.”

They ducked as another round of bullets peppered the wall above them. Matty could hear sirens approaching.

“Dalton, just go,” she whispered, eyes pinned to the screen.

“I will be,” Mac promised.

She saw Jack nod once and shift from the desk to the bank of deposit boxes before glancing back. Mac stood and threw the refurbished booby-trap bomb just as Jack made a break for the door.

And then the impossible happened.

Just as Jack’s camera showed him clearing the back and heading for the line of trees the two agents had used as cover before heading into the bank, Matty saw one of the thieves stand and fire point-blank at Mac. The younger agent’s camera went dark, but his comms were still on.

She heard what sounded like air rush from Mac’s lungs _en force_ as an explosion echoed over the mic. From Jack’s camera, she saw the older man turn back toward the bank, dust and a brief burst of flames erupting from the front of the bank just as the police circled the entrance.

“Mac,” Jack breathed, the absence of a lanky blond following in his wake cutting terror through the sound.

“He’s okay, Jack,” Matty found herself whispering to the image.

At least, she _thought_ he was okay. She knew that he returned from Belize, but she hadn’t seen her agent since that return and Jack’s anxious midnight call ratcheted her worry up to eleven. Shifting her eyes to the black half of the screen, Matty turned up the volume.

She could hear ragged breathing—almost panting—and a rough groan. The sound of rapid-fire orders and curses seemed distant, as did the clatter of metal, wood, and glass hitting the ground in the wake of the explosion.

“Fuck,” she heard Mac mutter, his voice tight and breathless, and then the sound of something ripping cut through the feed before the screen slipped to static.

He’d removed his vest, she realized.

The cameras were biometric, designed to work only for the agent the vest was programmed to fit. When the vest was removed, the feed ended and was inaccessible to outside tampering. Without his vest, not only was the camera gone but the only comms she’d now get would be through his earpiece and, based on the visual she was getting from Jack’s camera, the noise of the blast had temporarily knocked out that feed.

Clicking off the static, she expanded Jack’s feed to fill the screen, listening to the man’s anxious breathing as he scanned the shattered door of the bank where he’d exited.

“Riley, you copy?”

 _“I’m here,”_ Riley assured him.

“Cops are all over—you got any visual on Mac?”

 _“I’m trying to get into the bank’s security feed now,”_ Riley told him. _“The explosion rattled everything.”_

“Yeah, you’re telling me.”

 _“Jack.”_ Matty blinked, hearing her voice again. _“Exfil is thirty minutes out.”_

“I am currently missing both the plans _and_ Mac, Matty,” Jack growled into the comms. “Exfil can fucking wait.”

She bristled at his tone, remembering having the same reaction last night as well, and watched as he tucked himself against a mahogany tree, camera facing the bank.

 _“I got him, Jack,”_ Riley declared. _“He’s…looks like he’s trying to make his way to the back? But he’s not—”_

“Is he hurt?”

 _“I can’t tell,”_ Riley confessed. _“Could just be trying to avoid the cops. They’re entering the building.”_

“Dammit,” Jack growled, moving away from the tree.

 _“Dalton, you stay right where you are,”_ Matty heard herself order him. _“I do not want two agents compromised. One is bad enough.”_

“Compromised! You gotta be—”

Before Jack was able to tell her exactly what he thought of her order, Matty saw Mac stagger through the broken door and head in a wavering lope toward the tree line, the commotion at the front of the bank acting as cover for his escape. Jack’s exhale of relief was audible. She watched as he stepped backwards toward the arroyo where the truck was stashed, clearing the way for Mac to duck through the trees.

Matty found herself scanning the image of the young agent, looking for wounds, for blood, anything. Mac was breathing heavily, his TAC vest missing, the sleeves of his dark-blue shirt covered with soot and dust. The same was smudged across his face, concentrated on his left cheek where he must have instinctively turned his head. But there was no blood. Matty started to allow herself to exhale in relief.

Mac crossed into the shadow of the gully, the trees now offering both men cover, and made his way slowly toward Jack, still gasping for breath.

“Am I glad to see you,” Jack declared, his voice going weak and easy. “When that bomb went off, I thought—”

His voice broke off as without a word Mac suddenly went to his knees, his face stripped of color, one hand pressing against his chest. Matty felt her stomach drop, holding herself still as she watched Jack’s camera rush forward.

“Mac?”

Jack slid to his knees in front of the younger agent, his arms coming up to catch and stabilize Mac. They were too close to each other for Matty to see anything clearly—all she got were blurred images of Mac’s shirt, occasional glimpses of Jack’s hands. But she could hear everything clearly.

“Hey, hey, easy.”

All fear and nervousness in Jack’s voice took a back seat to his instinctive need to calm Mac down. Now that he was close to the younger agent, Matty could hear Mac’s ragged gasps for breath, the exhale chased by a sort of groan, as though his lungs had been pressed flat.

“Just breathe, kid,” Jack soothed, “you’re okay. I got you, brother.”

“Jack—”

“Don’t talk, just breathe,” Jack ordered. “One easy breath. There you go.”

He straightened up enough that Matty could now see that Mac was on the ground, sand mixing with the dust and soot on his clothes, hair, face. Jack’s camera aimed briefly toward the tree line, checking to make sure no one had followed Mac, then returned to his partner once they were secured.

Matty’s critical eyes examined what she could see of Mac. His head was pressed back into the sand, his throat exposed so that she could see him convulsively swallowing. One hand was still pressed to his chest as the other one curled fingers into the loose sand around him.

“Okay, bud, okay,” Jack reassured. “Lemme see.”

He moved Mac’s hand away and unbuttoned Mac’s long-sleeved shirt, tugging up the white T-shirt beneath. Matty winced at the sight of the younger man’s sternum—a starburst of red and deep purple blossomed out from the center, right where his camera would have been.

“Damn, kid,” Jack breathed. He leaned forward, the camera blurring again as he briefly touched his forehead to Mac’s in relief. “Thank God for Kevlar.”

“What—?”

Jack straightened up, one hand on the juncture of Mac’s neck and shoulder. “Gonna have to thank Matty for those vests, yeah?”

“Jack—” Mac gasped, his voice strangled, air still a limited commodity.

“Easy,” Jack reached for Mac’s shoulder and rolled him carefully to his side in rescue position. “Just take it easy. You did good, Mac. You got out of there. Just breathe.”

The side of Mac’s face was pressed against the sand and Matty could see him blinking. He reached up for Jack’s arm, their position blocking the camera. She turned up the volume.

“It…it was…the RPG,” Mac rasped.

“The what now?” Jack leaned closer, the camera image completely obscured, their voices just whispers over the speaker.

“RPG. Came from…from the rooftop….”

“Mac,” Jack said carefully, “it was _your_ bomb. You made it.”

Several seconds ticked by where all that was audible were Mac’s ragged gasps for air.

“Chest hurts….”

“Yeah, that’s ‘cause some Belizean bank robber shot your TAC vest,” Jack informed him.

“Belize?”

Matty frowned at the confusion braided through Mac’s tone. His air seemed to be coming easier, though, and after a beat, Jack’s camera cleared as he eased Mac upright, turning the younger man until he was leaning against Jack’s chest, blocking the camera angle once more.

“You’re in Belize,” Jack told him. “We’re on an Op. You’re not in Afghanistan, kid. We made it home. We made it out.”

Mac coughed roughly, then hissed in pain.

“You with me, Mac?”

“Yeah,” Mac wheezed. “’m sorry.”

“Hey, you’re okay, kid. Nothing to be sorry for.”

They were quiet a moment and Matty started when she heard her voice through the comms.

_“Jack, sitrep.”_

She saw the camera shift minutely as one of the men also jumped at the sound, but it was hard to tell which.

“Yeah, Matty,” Jack drawled. “I got Mac.”

_“Why are you not on your way to exfil?”_

Matty grimaced at the irritation she heard in her tone. Granted, she had no idea that one of her agents had been shot and was in the middle of a flashback, but she made a mental note to check her brass-tacks tone occasionally when her team went off comms for a bit.

“Heading there now, boss lady,” Jack reported.

The camera image shifted again and Matty could make out Mac’s dirt-smudged profile, his lips parted as he continued to steady his breathing. She couldn’t hear the ragged drag of air any longer, but a hand was still up toward his bruised chest.

“Think you can stand?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Mac replied, his words rushed as he worked to overcome the embarrassment of the minutes prior.

Jack stood and reached down for Mac’s hand. He pulled the blond up and Matty winced as the camera picked up Mac’s chalk-white features, his blue eyes closing as he gripped Jack’s arm tightly, gaining his balance.

“Oh, Blondie,” she whispered.

From the moment she’d been assigned the job of observing him—or more accurately, of investigating James MacGyver—what struck her most was the younger MacGyver’s reticence to admit weakness, to _need_ anyone or anything. From the moment his father had walked out, Mac had moved through life as though every step was along a fault line—there was no safety net, and no one was going to catch him.

Every pain, every lesson was on his shoulders.

Other than herself, she’d never seen anyone more alone. Until his father, ironically, had placed Jack Dalton in his path.

“I gotcha,” Jack was saying softly. Based on his camera angle, he was watching Mac as closely as she was. “I won’t let go.”

Mac swallowed again, then nodded. “I’m okay.” He opened his eyes, working his mouth into a semblance of a smile. “I promise, Jack.”

Jack hummed a doubtful reply but didn’t press the issue. They turned toward the arroyo; by the angle of the camera, Matty could see that Jack kept a hand on Mac’s shoulder.

“I sure hope you didn’t stash the plans in your vest, brother,” he was saying. Matty could tell the older man was asking that as much to test Mac’s cognitive awareness as to ensure the mission was complete.

“They’re on a flash drive,” Mac replied. “In my pocket.”

“That’s good ‘cause I wasn’t gonna go back in that bank,” Jack informed him.

Mac huffed a low laugh. “Right, and I bet you were all ready to tell Matty that, too.”

“Hell no,” Jack scoffed. “I was gonna let you do that.”

“Gee, thanks,” Mac chuckled.

“Don’t mention it,” Jack’s camera view shifted as he turned a bit to the side, a hand on Mac’s shoulder. “She likes you better, anyway.”

They hit the arroyo and Matty saw the truck across the way, shielded by the cluster of mahogany trees. Mac reached for the handle of the passenger door and Jack paused, making sure the younger man was able to climb inside. Moving around to the driver’s side of the truck, Jack slid behind the wheel. The camera image blurred as Jack ducked beneath the dash.

“What’er you doing?” Mac asked.

“What’s it look like?” Jack returned, his voice strained by his position.

Matty could hear what sounded like mini electrical shocks, then the truck roared to life.

“You can hot-wire a vehicle?” Mac exclaimed.

Jack straightened back up and shifted so that the camera caught Mac’s incredulous expression. He wasn’t as pale, and the T-shirt hid the nasty bruise on his chest, but his blue eyes were wide and glassy, and Matty was almost ready to march right out of the Phoenix Foundation and over to MacGyver’s house on her own to haul his ass down to Medical.

“Kid, I’ve been following you around for almost eight years now,” Jack said, a grin plain in his voice. “Eventually, I was bound to pick up something.”

Mac narrowed his eyes. “You always knew how to do that, didn’t you?”

Jack rotated back to face the steering wheel. “Let’s just call it benefits of a misspent youth and leave it at that.”

They pulled away from the arroyo, turning in a tight circle before heading back toward the airstrip. The quiet in the cab had Matty leaning forward once more. _Looks past the facts_.

“How you doing, kid?” Jack asked after a few minutes.

Mac didn’t reply at first; when he did, Matty drew her head back in surprise.

“You ever think life will get small enough we can fit inside of it and not get lost?” he asked.

To his credit, Jack didn’t miss a beat. “You’re not lost, bud.”

“Sometimes, I’m not sure.”

“Mac,” Jack’s voice leveled, drawing Matty’s focus. “You remember me telling you about how Worthy pulled me out of that dark place?”

Mac hummed a response. Jack shifted in his seat so that the camera picked up the younger man’s profile. Mac was staring with an empty expression through the front window, slumped against the door, one arm wrapped around his midsection. The camera rotated back to the dash for a moment.

“He told me that…that every day is like a little mission,” Jack continued. “You string enough of those missions together, it’s a life.” He turned quickly back toward Mac, seeing a pair of blood-shot, blue eyes pinned to him. “You aren’t lost in that life, Mac. You just gotta keep living it.”

Matty felt her eyes burning, listening to this man. Due to their history, she sometimes found herself taking Jack Dalton for granted. But occasionally, he’d remind her that the deep well of emotion he kept just beneath his surface had been dug by a multitude of experiences.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,” Mac said quietly.

“When?”

“When you were…y’know. In that…dark place.”

Jack huffed. “Mac, you were barely sixteen. Still blowing up football fields and figuring out how to graduate high school before everyone else. You and I met exactly when we were supposed to.”

“Yeah,” Mac scoffed. “Because Oversight arranged it.”

Matty tilted her head. Not _my father_. Not even _James_. Oversight. Three levels removed from familiarity.

“Nah, kid,” Jack reached across the cab of the truck to grip Mac’s shoulder. “He’s only part of the equation. He had nothing to do with me re-upping when my sixty-four days as your Overwatch were up. That was all me.”

Mac shifted in his seat as Jack’s camera turned back to the dash. “Why’d you do that?”

Matty allowed herself a small smile. She remembered James’ face when he got the notice that Jack hadn’t even made it out of Afghanistan before returning to watch over his son. The man had been, in a word, shocked.

“I did it…’cause Worthy threw a grenade out of the back of a truck and saved my life,” Jack said. “I did it ‘cause you didn’t leave me when I stepped on a pressure plate in Kabul. I did it because you…kid, you were one of the most infuriating people I had ever met and yet for some reason…the minute I left you, I knew if I didn’t go back, I’d never see you again and I just…I couldn’t live with that.”

The truck rattled as Matty waited for one of them to speak again.

“You came back to watch over me because Worthy saved your life?” Mac asked, a tremble in his low voice.

“Worthy saved mine, I saved yours, we saved Worthy…,” Jack shrugged, his camera shifting quickly to catch Mac’s expression. “We just keep making each day count, bud. And…someday, it’ll all make sense.”

Mac was quiet until they reached the exfil. Jack exited the truck and headed to the plane, glancing back frequently to make sure Mac was following him, but didn’t crowd the younger man. Matty could tell by the forced casualness of his tone when he greeted the pilots that he was trying to keep things as even-keeled and _normal_ as possible. Mac’s greetings and assurances were subdued, but he got into the plane and into his seat under his own steam.

As they strapped in for take-off, Jack leaned across the aisle, gripping Mac’s shoulder once more.

“You did good, kid,” he reassured him. “We completed the mission, we’re going home.”

“You did good, too,” Mac replied, the drowsiness in his tone matching the exhaustion that drew lines of tension on his face. “You kept us alive.”

“Yeah,” Jack sat back, and Matty heard a tale-tell ripping sound. “I’ve gotten kind of addicted to this whole living thing,” Jack joked, just as the camera went to static as he pulled off his vest.

Matty sat still for a moment, just breathing. After a few minutes, she shut off the big screen, and archived the video files. Checking her watch, she saw that it was just shy of six a.m. MacGyver wasn’t due in for his debriefing until eight.

 _Look past the facts_.

The facts were this: her agents had infiltrated the bank, retrieved the plans, and returned home alive. An untraceable piece of equipment had been left behind, but it was nothing they hadn’t handled before. The bioweapon would no longer be created—at least this _particular_ bioweapon—and a global crisis had been averted. Successful mission.

However.

She had also observed two of her best agents struggling for connection, had seen one of them wounded and experience a slight dissociative state, and neither had visited Medical. Not only that, the conversation on record would be enough for MacGyver to undergo a psych evaluation, which meant that unless she could figure out how to help him get past this, she needed to lose that video file or bench Mac. And finally, the one person who _could_ bring balance back into the young agent’s life was in Mexico under the guise of mission criticality.

An idea formed—inexplicably and without method.

Matty picked up her phone. Three texts later, she had reassigned an agent to take Dalton’s place in Saltillo and arranged an exfil to bring Jack home. She’d also alerted Medical and prepped them for a stubborn patient. And she’d made sure Riley was in town and free for the evening.

Next, she called MacGyver, unsurprised when she received his voicemail.

“MacGyver, if I do not see you down in Medical in the next hour, you can consider your invitation back into the Phoenix Foundation rescinded.” She tilted the phone away from her face so that she could bark the threat more forcefully.

Finally, she called Bozer.

 _“Time is it?”_ Bozer answered, groggily.

“It’s time for you to get up and go check on your roomie,” Matty ordered.

Bozer cleared his throat and she was pretty sure she heard a female voice utter a low curse. _“I’m not at home, Matty,”_ Bozer informed her.

“Then get your pants on and get over there,” she demanded. “Pronto!”

 _“Yes ma’am,”_ Bozer replied, sounding one-hundred percent awake now. _“What’s going on? Is Mac okay?”_

“That’s what you’re going to tell me,” Matty said. “I want him in here and reporting to Medical before eight a.m. Clear?”

 _“Crystal,”_ Bozer replied.

“Oh, and Bozer,” Matty caught him before he hung up. “What was that restaurant you were talking about last week?”

 _“Uh, restaurant?”_ Bozer asked, clearly confused.

“Yes. Restaurant,” Matty enunciated the word, knowing she was throwing him a curve ball, but using his confusion to her advantage. “As in, a place where people consume prepared food.”

_“You mean The Kitchen?”_

“Yes, thank you. That’s the one,” Matty smiled. “Clear your calendar for this evening. And tell Leanna to do the same.”

_“Uh, okay. Sure, Matty.”_

Smirking, Matty purposefully hardened her voice. “Are you at MacGyver’s yet?”

 _“On my way!”_ Bozer yelped, then hung up.

Roughly three hours later, Matty lingered outside of Phoenix Medical, working through files on her iPad and studiously ignoring the ongoing alerts from Oversight blinking in the corner of her screen.

She’d been informed the minute Bozer had dragged a very reluctant, very disgruntled MacGyver into Medical, and timed her arrival for when she knew the exam would be completed. Stepping through the main doors, she met the doctor’s eye and nodded back at him when he indicated which curtain currently hid her agent from prying eyes.

Bozer had successfully deposited Mac at Medical and immediately high-tailed it to the safety of his lab. She knew Jack was en route from the landing strip, so it was the perfect time for a minor _tete-a-tete_ with her agent.

That is, until she heard the unmistakable voice of James MacGyver following her through the doors.

“Director Webber.”

Matty winced. There was no way Mac hadn’t heard that voice, as close as she was to the exam curtain. She turned smoothly, a smile painted on her face.

“Sir,” she greeted, steel in her voice. “How can I help you?”

“I was informed that you belayed direct orders and reassigned personnel.”

Matty arched an eyebrow, feeling her muscles tense at his tone. “Both of which are under my purview as Director,” she reminded him.

“I assigned—”

Matty stepped forward, pitching her voice low as she interrupted. “I know exactly what you did,” she practically hissed. James blinked, pulling his head back in surprise at her advance. “Ask me what I’m doing in Medical, James.”

The elder MacGyver had the grace to look momentarily chagrined. “I know why you’re here.”

“Do you care to check on him before I get in there?”

James shook his head once. “He doesn’t want to see me,” he replied.

Matty narrowed her eyes. “Do you know why _he’s_ here?”

At that, James simply blinked at her.

“We are down one biometric TAC vest because one of our agents took a bullet point-blank,” Matty informed him. “Luckily for us, the reinforced Kevlar behind the camera worked perfectly.”

Matty wanted to smile when James MacGyver’s face lost a bit of its color.

“That wasn’t in the report,” he offered.

“You mean the report he hasn’t had a chance to submit since he was getting his chest x-rayed during the time his debriefing was scheduled?” she asked.

“What are you up to, Matty?” James asked quietly.

Matty tilted her head. “What makes you think I’m up to anything other than ensuring the safety and well-being of my agents?”

“And you’re insinuating that I am after something else?”

Matty narrowed her eyes, pitching her voice lower. “I’m not sure what you’re after, James. I’m not even sure if _you_ know that.”

“A chance,” James replied on a whisper. “That’s all. Just a chance.”

Matty arched an eyebrow. “You’ve had several,” she reminded him. “And you’re starting to run out.”

James stared at her for several beats longer, then sighed. “I’ll back off on the Saltillo Op. Egerton is not as good as Dalton, but he’ll do,” he acquiesced.

“I’m glad you think so,” Matty replied. “Now, if there’s nothing else, I’m going to check on my agent.”

James glanced toward the bank of curtains behind where Matty stood, then at her once more.

“Carry on,” he nodded, turning on his heel and exiting the facility.

Matty once more exchanged a look with the doctor who’d examined Mac, but this time she saw both suspicion and irritation in the other man’s expression. And it wasn’t directed at her.

“Oversight will want a full report on this agent’s prognosis, as per usual,” she informed him.

The doctor nodded but did not look happy. Matty ignored him; she didn’t have time to take care of _everyone’s_ feelings. There was only one person she needed to focus on right now. Making her way to the curtain, she moved it aside, then climbed up into a chair to face MacGyver.

The young agent didn’t look up. He sat on the bed, his long legs hanging free, dressed in only a T-shirt, jeans, and Converse sneakers, his long-sleeved shirt lying on the bed next to him. He’d showered the dirt and soot from his skin at some point and was currently examining the palm of one hand as though the lines there would reveal answers to the mysteries of the universe.

“So, I take it Dad says hi,” he finally muttered, still not meeting her eyes.

Matty let the bitterness in his tone go past. “Why didn’t you report to Medical when you returned last night?”

Mac lifted a shoulder. Sighing, Matty pulled up the doctor’s report emailed to her on her phone.

“Grade 1 concussion, hairline fracture to the sternum, severe bruising,” she read. Mac didn’t react. “You should not have been home alone last night.”

“I can’t have a babysitter all the time,” Mac replied. He finally looked up at her. “I mean, isn’t that the whole point of sending Jack to Saltillo? Reminding me that I have to be able to work alone?”

Matty narrowed her eyes. “Dalton’s assignment to Saltillo was made without my knowledge or authorization.”

“Assigning agents is under your purview,” Mac stated, reminding her that he’d heard the conversation in the hallway.

“Well, we all have bosses, MacGyver,” she said quietly. “But making sure you don’t slip into a coma while you’re sleeping because of a concussion is slightly different than having a babysitter.” She tilted her head. “Why didn’t you ask Bozer to stay home?”

Mac just shook his head. “He shouldn’t have to turn his whole life inside out just ‘cause I’m back,” he said quietly, his voice directed toward his hands.

There was something lingering just outside of his words, something Matty couldn’t put her finger on. Something that had driven him to worry about Jack heading back to Afghanistan, something that had him asking about Worthy, something that sent his concussed mind back to their time deployed.

“Why Nigeria, Mac?” Matty suddenly asked, bringing the younger agent’s head up sharply. “You could have gone literally anywhere. Why did you pick a remote village in Nigeria to hide?”

Mac frowned. “I wasn’t hiding,” he protested. “I was….”

He blinked, looking for all the world as though the words he needed had literally turned to dust before his eyes.

“What made you choose _that_ place?” Matty pressed.

Mac shook his head slowly. “I don’t…I don’t actually know,” he confessed. “We’d never been on assignment there. As far as I knew, my father had no connections there, it seemed like some place I could…,” he lifted a shoulder, looking to the curtain opening and empty hallway, “breathe.”

Matty nodded. “You know, Jack found you within a day,” she revealed.

“I figured.”

“And he checked on you via satellite, sometimes three or four times a day,” she continued.

Mac looked down, his brows drawing together over the bridge of his nose. “Yeah.”

“You might not feel it right now,” Matty said quietly, drawing the younger man’s eyes to hers, “but you’re not alone, Mac.”

Mac swallowed, bouncing his head in a quick nod, trying to dismiss this line of questioning as quickly as possible. The tension in his posture was almost painful to see—and it wasn’t from the bruised sternum or the headache she saw building behind his eyes. It was from living too many years waiting for the next person to walk away.

“I’m postponing your debrief until tomorrow,” Matty informed him.

Mac looked up, surprised. “I can do it, Matty.”

Matty slid off her chair and leveled her eyes up at him. “I didn’t ask you if you could do it; I told you it was being postponed.”

She thought back to when she first took this position, how much it had scared her that he so often went off-book, that he improvised almost every solution. Not being able to dictate or foresee what he would do based on training and proven outcomes terrified her—she couldn’t have the death of the kid she’d watched grow up on her conscious.

It wasn’t until she realized that he _did_ follow the rules—the ones that applied to the universe, to physics and biology and chemistry—that she found herself trusting his methods. And his giving a little and ensuring that his reports were filed with detailed briefings of each mission helped even more.

“Honestly, I’m fine,” Mac protested.

“Pretty sure that’s going to go on your tombstone,” came a familiar voice from the hallway.

Matty openly smiled when Mac’s head came up and he straightened, his blue eyes eagerly darting to the opened curtain. When Jack stepped through and headed straight for the bed, Matty watched Mac’s whole demeanor shift. Jack wrapped the younger agent up in a hug, Mac’s arms coming around Jack’s back and he seemed to melt into the embrace, his eyes closing over Jack’s shoulder.

“I leave you alone for a few hours…,” Jack teased, his voice muffled against Mac’s shoulder, his hand coming up to cup the back of Mac’s head.

Mac pulled in a breath and released Jack as the older man stepped back.

“You doing okay, kid?” Jack asked. “No bullshit this time.”

Mac’s eyes darted over Jack’s face, skimming the other man’s body as though checking for wounds before meeting his eyes once more.

“I’m okay,” Mac replied. “Pretty sore, and my head is killing me, but…I’ve had worse.”

“Don’t I know it,” Jack grinned, gripping Mac’s shoulder.

“How are you here?” Mac asked, looking from Jack to Matty and back again. “Is the Op done already?”

“I had Egerton reassigned,” Matty informed him, watching as Mac seemed to draw energy from Jack’s presence. “I need you all here for a special job tonight.”

Both men looked at her in surprise. “Tonight?” They asked in unison.

“But first,” she looked at Jack, “ _you_ are going to shower—”

“Hey now!” Jack protested, drawing his chin back in mock affront.

“—and _you_ ,” she looked at Mac, “are getting your pain meds filled and sleeping for several hours.”

Something dark slipped into Mac’s eyes—a kind of sad fear that made Matty’s heart clench.

“I’m good, Matty, really,” Mac argued. “I’ll get the meds, but I can work until you need us tonight.”

Matty and Jack both looked at him, but it was Jack’s eyes that drew Mac’s.

“How much sleep did you get last night?” Jack asked.

In a classic _let me deflect your question with one of my own_ avoidance tactic, Mac challenged, “How much did _you?_  You left the hanger and headed off to Mexico without even a change of clothes.”

“Dude, I slept on the last three planes I’ve been on,” Jack informed him. “A skill you have yet to master.”

Mac frowned, sliding from the bed to square off with his partner, putting his back to the wall of the exam room. He wavered slightly, one hand on the bed to steady himself. Matty stepped to the side, aligning her stance with Jack’s.

“Look, I’m not tired, okay?” Mac protested, raising his hands as though warding them off, his words picking up a manic sort of speed.  “And…we have a lot of work to do, especially if we want to find Murdoc and make him pay for what he did to Jill. Plus, I’m pretty sure Oversight is the one pinging the hell out of your phone right now, Matty. We can’t just…just take off when we get a little banged up. Bad guys don’t take a break, neither should we! I’ll just head to the lab or camp out in the War Room so I can—”

Before Matty could cut in and stop Mac’s semi-panicked filibuster, Jack took two steps forward, gripped the back of Mac’s neck and cut off the younger man’s ramble.

“Hey,” Jack said softly. “Easy.”

Mac closed his mouth, Jack’s voice acting like a lifeline. Matty watch with awe as Jack anchored the younger man.

“Take a breath.”

Mac swallowed, his eyes on Jack’s, doing as the man asked.

There was something powerful about the sound of the human voice. The emotion caught in that sound can cut through the chaos and drive someone forward when all they want to do was stop. It can remind them they’re not alone in the madness of the world.

Someone sees them, someone knows them, someone is watching out for them.

As Mac reached up and braced himself by clasping a hand around Jack’s forearm, Matty knew bringing Dalton home had been the exact right thing to do.

“I _can’t_ sleep, Jack,” Mac confessed quietly, a desperate edge to his words. “Not yet.”

“No one is going to make you sleep, okay?” Jack reassured him. “Nightmares wear you out. Believe me, I get it.”

At that, Mac seemed to sink in on himself. Jack pulled him forward by the scruff of the neck, allowing Mac to bury his face in his shoulder, and wrapped his free arm around the younger man’s back. Matty held herself still, waiting. Watching.

After a moment, Mac huffed out a brief laugh.

“Matty’s right,” he sniffed, straightening up. “You need a shower.”

“Oh, now who’s the smart ass?” Jack good-naturedly exclaimed. He shifted his grip to more of a gentle head lock, then released Mac entirely. “Go get your meds, you punk.”

Mac smiled, grabbing his shirt from the bed, then nodded to Matty as he stepped through the curtain opening. The minute he was gone, Jack dropped his gaze to meet Matty’s eyes.

“You don’t have to say it,” Matty told him quietly. “You were right to call me.”

“Don’t break us up again until I get him leveled out, Matty,” Jack practically ordered, his voice pitched low so that Mac wouldn’t hear. “He’s walking a dangerous line,” Jack looked over her head toward the hallway where Mac had ventured. “I’ve been there. And if you don’t have someone to pull you back,” he shook his head, looking back down at her, “it’s too damn easy to fall over the edge.”

“I know,” Matty told him. “Any idea what that whole incident was with him after the bank?”

Jack shot her a look. “You’re talking about him thinking it was an RPG?”

Matty nodded. Jack sighed, resting his hands on his hips and hanging his head.

“It’s was a…,” Jack shook his head. “He got his bell rung, he was in the sand, I was there…it was just Kandahar all over again.”

Her heart clenched again, thinking of all Jack had been through, of Mac being too young to have been there as well. “I’ll text you the location for tonight’s job. Just make sure he’s there, okay?”

Jack lifted his chin, narrowing his eyes. “What are you up to, boss-lady?”

Matty matched his look. “Just be there, Dalton.”

“Okay, okay,” Jack held up his hands in surrender. “I’ll go get our boy and chill out for the rest of the day until we hear from you.”

“You do that,” Matty agreed. She started to head out through the opened curtain before pausing and tossing one last reminder over her shoulder. “And Dalton? Seriously. Shower.”

“Everybody’s a critic,” Jack grumbled.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Kitchen, Downtown Los Angeles**  
Present Day  
1900 hrs  
_Matty_

She’d requested a table toward the back of the restaurant, away from the floor-to-ceiling front windows. They were near enough to the actual kitchen she could see flames from the grill and hear the line cooks calling to each other in various languages—none of them English. The interior of the restaurant was very industrial-chic in design: high, exposed ceilings and duct work, steel pillars, and large, welded metal chandeliers. Aside from the front windows, facing the busy thoroughfare of 9th street, the rest of the building was constructed with stone walls and cinder blocks.

The designer had wisely partitioned the layout of the warehouse-like space so that half-walls broke up the flow and cut down on the echo of voices. As Matty waited for her team at a long, rectangular table, she appreciated the noise-canceling effect of the architecture. She’d purposefully arrived early, ensuring there would be space for them and ordered champagne for the table.

Bozer and Leanna were first to arrive, dressed for a night out. Both looked suitably impressed by this particular ‘mission’ and sat where Matty indicated with broad grins on their faces. She ignored their inquiries and simply encouraged them to decide what to eat.

Mac was next; he arrived alone, which surprised Matty.

He had apparently also gotten the memo that this was a nicer occasion as he wore dark jeans rather than his usual cargo pants, and his navy-blue, long-sleeved dress shirt had been recently ironed. He looked no more rested than he’d appeared that morning, but he was moving easier. Apparently, someone had convinced him to take the pain meds. He sat next to Matty, facing out toward the restaurant, eyes on the other patrons.

There was a simmering tension about him.

She watched as his fingers worried the edge of the table cloth, adjusted the utensils at his place setting until everything was symmetrical, and sipped his water, smiling tightly at Bozer and Leanna. She watched Bozer frown at his friend, but let the moment pass rather than press the issue here. When she couldn’t take it any longer, she slid two paperclips over toward Mac.

He looked at her with surprise.

“Just, do your thing, Blondie,” she muttered, a small smile ghosting her lips. “You’re about as anxious as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”

At that, Mac barked a surprised laugh, picking up the paperclips. “You’ve been hanging around Jack too long,” he grinned.

She smiled back, and saw the tension begin to ease the minute his hands were busy. Bozer’s enthusiastic greeting of Riley and Jack alerted her to their arrival. Jack apologized for running late and tugged on the edges of his slim-cut leather jacket, adjusting the cuffs over his white shirt before he pulled out Riley’s chair for her.

With a slightly exasperated sigh, Riley explained that she had a little last-minute job to do for their collective boss.

“He had me run an algorithm on the video from the new TAC vests,” Riley explained as she sat next to Leanna, their black dresses almost identical, apart from Riley’s capped sleeves. “I’m not sure what he was looking for, but he wanted the results sent directly to his personal secured server.”

Matty narrowed her eyes; she suspected she knew what Oversight was after, but she didn’t want to go into it now. Jack dropped into the chair on the other side of her, across from Mac, and grinned at the younger man.

“You are seriously like a damn Boy Scout,” Jack teased, nodded toward the paperclips. “Always prepared.”

Mac grinned. “I left the Boy Scouts,” he reminded Jack, “and for your information, Matty brought these.”

“Did she, now?” Jack whipped his cloth napkin from the table and snapped it in the air before dropping across his lap. “And here I thought you hated that bowl of paperclips, Matilda?”

“We reserve the right to be smarter today than we were yesterday, Jack,” Matty gave him a look. “And I realized it’s much smarter to give Baby Einstein here something to occupy himself with when he’s bored…unless I want to end up with a dinner table that can transform into a semi-truck.”

Bozer and Riley laughed, while Leanna tilted her head questioningly. “You could do that?”

Mac lifted a shoulder, a half-grin exposing his dimple. “Well, maybe not a semi-truck, but I could turn it into a go-cart pretty easily.”

Jack chuckled, then looked over at Matty. “Okay, boss-lady. You going to tell us what gives?”

“Yeah, gotta admit, I’m curious,” Bozer chimed in. “Especially since we usually all meet over at Mac’s place when we get together.”

“Exactly,” Matty nodded. “This time, I wanted to bring this team together away from the office, away from our usual hide-aways, and show you all some appreciation.”

Riley and Mac exchanged a surprised look while Jack leaned forward on his elbows, his expression serious. “What’s going on, Matty? You resigning?”

Matty chuckled. “No, Jack. I’m here until Oversight boots me out.”

Mac’s face closed at the mention of his father and he sat back, fingers reshaping the paperclips.

Matty looked around the table. “You all have done amazing work,” she started.

The younger agents looked at each other, questions and uncertainty in their expressions, but Jack never took his eyes off Matty. She caught his soft, appreciative smile and rested her gaze on him for a moment.

“When I first took over the role of Director, I wasn’t sure what I’d been given.”

Glancing around the table, she continued, “I had a seasoned, pain-in-the-ass soldier,” she let her lips quirk into a smile to soften the teasing tone, “a genius that wouldn’t know a process and procedures rule book if I hit him with it, a brilliant hacker, and a would-be movie director who hadn’t even heard of spy school.”

She watched them glance at each other.

“You were a bunch of misfits who discovered you belong to each other. You’ve came together as a team, you gathered other misfits to you,” she nodded at Leanna, “and you stepped up. You’ve…made a family.”

Jack folded his hands in a tent above his plate, nodding as he glanced down, then across at Mac before shifting his eyes back toward Matty.

“Recently, this family has dealt with some…tough blows,” she let her eyes roam the table, thinking Jill should have been there, guilt gnawing at her a bit more because she was not, “and some pretty big losses. And loss is never easy.”

“I’ve been in this business a long time,” she glanced at Jack with a soft smile. “I’ve seen some of the best agents…and some of the worst. I’ve had friends die on my watch, and I’ve seen others move on to build families and follow new paths.”

She saw the waiters bring the champagne to the far end of the table, Riley and Bozer looking up to acknowledge them, and then went on.

“We’ve been through some tests lately,” she said, glancing at Mac. The young agent was listening, she could tell, but hadn’t looked at her since she began talking. He was staring intently at the paperclips in his hands, his fingers constantly moving. “And we’re going to be tested more—that’s just life. But I think we’ve shown that when we come together…when we act as a true team…there’s nothing we can’t overcome.”

As if to punctuate her sentence, one of the waiters popped the cork from a bottle of champagne. At the sound, Mac jumped, flinching so violently his hand bounced against his place setting and knocked over his water glass. Matty looked over at the blond agent in surprise, her heart constricting at the stark fear that cut across his expression for a moment.

“Whoa, bud,” Jack teased, picking up the water glass and dropping his napkin on the spill. “No need to empty your glass, pretty sure they’ve got extras.”

Mac blinked, swallowing, and looked around the table where the rest of the team was staring at him with a mixture of surprise and concern.

“Sorry,” he muttered, nodding at the waiter to continue pouring the drinks. He looked quickly over at Matty, his expression once more schooled to neutral. “I’m sorry, Matty.”

“It’s okay,” Matty said softly, smiling gently at him. “I think we could all use that drink right about now.”

“You can say that again,” Riley chimed in, smiling at Mac.

The team raised their glasses toward the middle of the table.

“To the best damn spies this country has ever _not_ seen,” Jack toasted, a grin on his face, his eyes on Mac.

“Cheers!” The team clinked glasses together and drank.

“So, wait. The mission tonight is…dinner?” Bozer asked as he opened his menu.

Matty raised an eyebrow at him. “You always were a quick one,” she teased.

“Nicely done, Matty,” Jack said quietly, his dark eyes warm and sincere.

Matty smiled at him. “We need a break, don’t you think?”

“I do,” Jack nodded, glancing over at Mac, a frown slipping across his features, before he smoothed it out and looked back at her. “I do indeed.”

Matty glanced over at Mac and saw that the blond had set the paperclips next to his plate when he picked up his menu. The source of Jack’s frown was clear when she saw the shape Mac’s fingers had formed: the mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb. She was pretty sure the Phoenix psych department would have a field day with the young agent.

“What kind of steak do they have in this place?” Jack exclaimed, opening his menu and making a show of reading off the entrees.

The team seemed to relax into the familiar process of selecting and ordering. Even Mac seemed back to his typical, light-hearted self, joining Riley and Leanna in teasing Bozer about his latest music acquisition. Jack chatted with Matty—their history fodder for humor as well as caution. Mid-way through their meal, the chef came out from the kitchen to check on their satisfaction.

Matty looked up at the young face and smiled politely, but before she could compliment the meal, she heard an exclamation from Mac.

“Flynn?”

The young chef looked up and surprise cut across his face. “MacGyver?”

Jack’s head shot up and he glanced from Mac to the man standing next to Matty. “Holy shit! If it isn’t Specialist Henry Flynn himself!”

The chef’s face broke out into a broad smile and he grabbed Mac up in a hard hug as Mac gained his feet, then moved around to do the same to Jack, the other man’s grip dislodging the chef’s hat.

“What are the odds, huh?” Flynn laughed, blue eyes sparkling, jet-black curls sticking up hap-hazardly from where the chef’s hat had kept them tamed. Matty thought he looked only a few years older than Mac. “How are you guys?”

“We’re good, bud!” Jack said, his hand still on Flynn’s shoulder. He handed the hat back to Flynn. “What are you, head waiter?”

“Bus boy,” Flynn joked.

Mac stood with his hands on his hips, his eyes taking in the young chef as though he couldn’t believe he was real. “This is your place?”

Flynn nodded. “Opened last month. All my Mama’s recipes.”

“Your Mama knew what she was doing,” Bozer spoke up. “The food is amazing.”

Riley and Leanna nodded enthusiastically.

“Flynn, meet our team,” Jack said, sweeping his arm to include the table. “Guys, meet Henry Flynn, best damn cook in the US Army.”

Flynn nodded to the table. “So, team of…what?”

Jack glanced over at Mac. “We, uh…work at a think tank,” he explained.

“A think tank?” Flynn laughed. He jerked a thumb toward Mac. “Okay, this one I buy, but what do they have you doing? Security?”

“Funny,” Jack gave Flynn a light punch to the shoulder.

Flynn looked over at Mac. “Guess he meant what he said, huh?”

Mac smiled, his eyes briefly finding Jack’s. “Guess so.”

“What did you say, Jack?” Riley asked.

Jack shrugged, rubbing the back of his head. “Oh, you know. The usual big damn hero stuff.”

“Nah, this guy,” Flynn clapped a hand Jack’s shoulder, “is the real deal. He said he wasn’t going to let MacGyver out of his sight.” He looked at Mac. “What was it, about a month before your tour was up?”

“Forty-two days,” Mac replied, his voice going tight again.

Matty shot him a worried look before turning her attention back toward Flynn.

“Not that he was counting,” Flynn grinned at the table. “Anyway, a bunch of us were caught in a Charlie Foxtrot if there ever was one, and these two appear like superheroes. Mac basically saves our asses with, like, a toothpick—”

“Paperclip,” Mac interrupted, his face coloring as he glanced back at the table. “It was a paperclip.”

“Whatever, man, you were incredible. And Dalton, here, just doesn’t know when to quit. He kept Mac alive long enough, we all got out of there,” Flynn shook his head, remembering.

“Well, not all of us,” Mac amended.

Sobering, Flynn nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. Man…I never thought I’d see you guys again.”

“Hell, I never thought you’d be a chef at some swanky L.A. restaurant, there, Cookie,” Jack grinned.

Flynn smiled at him, his eyes shining a bit with sudden emotion. “I’m glad you made it home,” he looked over at Mac, “and I’m glad you’re still working together. You two made a pretty kick-ass team.”

“That’s the truth,” Jack smiled at Mac. The blond clearly tried to echo the expression, but his mouth was tight. He nodded instead.

“I gotta get back to it,” Flynn said, tugging the chef’s hat back into place, “but if you guys need _anything_ you just ask. And, hey, dessert is on me.”

“Thank you, Henry,” Matty said, smiling at him.

As Flynn walked away, Mac and Jack sat back down, staring at each other.

“What do you know about that,” Jack breathed in wonder. “Henry Fucking Flynn.”

“I wasn’t sure he made it out,” Mac said softly. “I mean, he was….” His voice tapered, and his gaze drifted to the paperclip shape he’d set next to his plate.

“Shoot, kid,” Jack pulled his head back. “It’s not like you were in much better shape.”

“Are paperclips standard-issue for EOD Techs?” Bozer teased.

“You’d think so, the way this one always found a way to use them,” Jack replied. Matty shot her eyes over to Mac and saw the younger agent was staring sightlessly at his plate. Jack continued, “Between those and that little knife of his, Uncle Sam should re-evaluate their EOD supply list. He might’ve been the slowest bomb tech on the planet, but he dismantled something like…500 ordnances.”

“So, what happened with Flynn?” Leanna asked.

Matty saw Riley and Bozer shoot her twin looks, and she pressed her lips closed, wincing her apology. When Mac didn’t reply, Jack frowned, ducking his head to try to catch the younger man’s eye.

“Mac?”

Mac lifted his head, staring with a groggy sort of confusion across the table at his partner. Matty noticed the blue of his eyes seemed to stand about a bit—like neon against blood-shot white.

“Hey, bud. Where’d you go just then?” Jack asked.

“I, uh…,” Mac blinked, shaking his head slightly, then glanced down the table. “I’ll be right back,” he said, standing. “Restroom.”

He moved away from the table before anyone could react.

Jack exhaled slowly, dropping his head into the hammock of his hands. “What are the fucking odds?”

Matty rested a hand on his forearm. “What is it?”

Jack swallowed, lifting his head and straightening up. “It was…,” he glanced at Matty, then looked down the table at Bozer who frowned in response. “It was the Kandahar rescue,” he said and Matty watched as Bozer drew his chin up, closing his eyes in realization. “And Flynn was being kind when he called it a clusterfuck.”

“Kandahar, as in…,” Matty let her voice fade, dropping her chin as she started at Jack.

“Yeah,” Jack nodded. “Same time as that...flashback.”

Bozer leaned his elbows on the table. “Mac used to get these nightmares,” he said softly, his eyes going to Jack as though making sure it was okay that he revealed this information, “when he got back. Sometimes they’d get so bad, he’d come in and sleep on the floor in my room. He never talked about them, until this one time when he said it was about Kandahar.”

“Flynn wouldn’t remember it the same way Mac and I do,” Jack said, rubbing the back of his head. “He was unconscious for a lot of it.”

Matty ran her fingers along the edge of the table, her eyes drifting once more to the paperclip next to Mac’s plate.

“Did he ever…y’know,” Leanna shrugged, looking for the right words, “get help? When you guys got home?”

Jack shook his head, but Matty spoke up. “It’s not how Mac does things,” she said quietly. “He never really learned how to ask for help—he’s always just had to figure out how to survive his life on his own.”

“Matty, you talk like you’ve known him as long as I have,” Bozer commented, bringing his chin up in question.

“In a way,” Matty gave Bozer a small smile, “I have.”

“I should go check on him,” Jack said, pushing his chair back and preparing to stand up.

But in that moment, the world turned inside out. The floor seemed to jolt, as if a freight train had run full-tilt into the restaurant, and then the whole room began to shake.

“Oh, my god,” Matty breathed. “It’s an earthquake.”

“Holy shit—Matty, get under the table!” Jack ordered, grabbing her from her chair before she had a chance to follow his instructions and pulling her up against him as he took cover beneath the heavy-duty table.

Struggling to turn her head as Jack shielded her, Matty saw that Bozer had his arms around both Leanna and Riley; they were crowded under the table as well. The Earth continued to shake, sending Jack sideways more than once, forcing him to catch his balance while not crushing her.

The noise within the restaurant was chaotic.

Matty could hear crashing, shattering, and what sounded like small explosions. People screamed, sirens wailed, and the Earth shook. She began to feel nauseous from the movement. It felt like hours, but in reality could have only been minutes, when the shaking began to subside to a tremble then stop entirely.

With unsteady hands, Matty pushed her hair from her face, pressing gently against Jack’s arm until he released her. Irrationally, she found herself thinking that she was glad she’d chosen to wear pants rather than the skirt she’d had lying out; the debris beneath her knees pressed painfully into her skin. She looked over to where Riley, Leanna, and Bozer looked up in shock from where the Earth had tossed them, all of them breathing hard. Riley had a cut on her forehead, but otherwise they looked intact.

“Everybody okay?” Jack asked, his breath coming in shocked gasps.

The three younger agents nodded shakily.

“Matty?”

“I’m good,” she nodded, reassuring Jack.

“Okay,” Jack said, his voice low and steady. “It’s going to be a mess out there by the sound of it,” his eyes traced all four of them evenly. “Be _careful_ when you climb out from under the table. We’ll have to see who we can help. Got it?”

“Got it,” Bozer replied.

“Jack—what about Mac?” Riley asked anxiously.

“Mac’s okay,” Jack replied with confidence. “He’ll find us. You guys ready?”

They all nodded and then slowly climbed out from beneath the table. Matty gaped at the utter destruction around her. Walls had collapsed into themselves, creating a kind of barricade between their section of the restaurant and the rest of the building. The ornate, welded chandelier she’d noticed earlier was on the ground, sections having broken off. Pieces of the ceiling ductwork had fallen, and plaster and stone were scattered among the broken plates, glasses, and food.

People were moving around in shock, some bleeding, others covered in dust and plaster, but for the most part everyone seemed to be at least mobile. Leanna and Riley stepped forward shakily, broken plates and glasses crunching beneath their heels. Bozer was sliding his jacket around Leanna’s bare shoulders; Riley had her arms wrapped around her middle, dark eyes staring around her with shock.

Matty took a slow breath. They were her responsibility. She had to keep them safe. How in the hell—

“Oh, shit,” Matty heard Bozer swear and she turned to find where he was looking.

The kitchen behind them was in shambles. She could see through the serving pass-through that the big oven was tipped over as though it had partially fallen into the Earth. Flames shot up at irregular intervals from the grill and they could hear shouting from the kitchen staff.

Matty took a breath. “Leanna, head to the front and see if there is a way out. Bozer, go to the kitchen and assess the damage—get anyone in there to come this way. Riley, take the left, Jack, take the right. Triage people, start getting them organized according to age and injury.”

Her team nodded in unison and without another word moved to do as she ordered. Matty stepped toward an older couple who had been sitting at a table near them. The man was setting a chair upright for his wife to sink into; the woman’s hands were shaking from shock, but she seemed otherwise unharmed.

“Are you both okay?” Matty asked the older gentlemen.

He nodded, but a burst of flame from the kitchen had him flinching in startled surprise. Matty turned quickly at a shout from Bozer and saw that he was motioning several kitchen workers—their white uniforms singed and smudged with soot—through the doorway. She was about to call him away from the kitchen entrance when he shouted something that had her blood running cold.

“Mac!”

Matty felt her breath catch. Mac must have run into the burning kitchen when she was ordering the team to help; she hadn’t seen him since he left their table. She instinctively moved toward Bozer, but before she could get two steps, Jack blasted past her and was skidding to a stop as another burst of flame shot through the kitchen pass-through.

“Jack, don’t—” Matty started to call, but stopped when she saw Henry Flynn stumble toward the doorway from the interior of the burning kitchen.

Jack launched forward, catching the former Army Specialist as his knees gave way.

“Get…get them back,” Flynn coughed as he clung to Jack, his face red and soot-smudged, chef’s hat gone and hair askew. “Get them all back!”

Jack looked up at Bozer who moved immediately toward what was left of the restaurant’s interior, waving his hands and ordering everyone away from the kitchen.

“Flynn?” Jack pulled the young man to his feet, holding him steady.

“Qu-quake broke the g-gas line,” Flynn coughed. “Whole thing’s gonna blow!”

“Where’s Mac?” Jack asked, looking over Flynn’s shoulder.

“He’s in there,” Flynn shot a frantic look back toward the kitchen. “Can’t get to the gas shut-off. Said he had a way to stop the explosion. Block the valve. Told me to get everyone back.”

Jack pulled Flynn toward him, away from the door, then looked over his shoulder for help. Riley stood close and reached for Flynn, pulling the young chef’s arm over her shoulder and helping him to where Bozer and Leanna had sequestered the rest of the patrons behind a couple of the heavy dining tables.

“Jack, no!” Matty shouted as Jack turned back toward the kitchen.

The look on his face told her all she needed to know: he wasn’t in a mood to listen to reason. She hurried toward him, knowing in her gut that the only way she was going to keep Jack from heading into the kitchen after Mac was if he was trying to keep her safe.

“Dammit, Matty,” Jack growled, waving a hand in her direction. “Get back!”

“Not without you!”

“Everybody clear?” Mac shouted the question from the interior of the burning kitchen.

Uttering another curse, Jack turned, nodding at Matty as they ran back to the safety of the table barricade.

“We’re clear—now get your ass out here!” Jack shouted back.

“He said he had to create a…a vacuum with an alternate explosion,” Flynn said, coughing into the crook of his arm. “Or…something like that.”

“Of fucking course he did,” Jack growled. “Mac!”

But before anyone else could move, a low _boom_ echoed through the remains of the restaurant, the building shook once more. Several people screamed in automatic reaction, and then several more screamed when flames shot up one last time before blowing themselves out, leaving nothing but smoke and silence in their wake.

Jack was the first one to step out from behind the barricade, Bozer on his heels.

“Mac!” Jack shouted, heading toward the darkened kitchen door with long strides. “ _Mac_!”

Matty felt her heart clench as she watched the kitchen entryway, waiting, breath held. Before Jack reached the doorway, Mac’s lanky frame slumped against the opening. Blood painted one side of his face, his right sleeve was ripped and shiny with blood, but he was standing. He braced himself with one hand against the door frame, his blue eyes bright as he looked across the space toward Jack.

Jack halted, his shoulders bowing with relief. “Jesus, kid, don’t _do_ that to—”

He never finished his sentence.

As though someone cut his strings, Mac crumpled, his knees hitting the ground seconds before he pitched forward. Jack uttered a low cry of denial and slid toward his partner like a batter stealing home, catching Mac before his head smacked the ground. Bozer dropped to the ground next to them, his hands hovering over Mac’s body, clearly at a loss.

“Jack?” Matty called, her voice strangled with fear.

She felt rooted to the spot. The dozen people behind her didn’t matter. The destruction around her didn’t matter. The muted sound of sirens didn’t matter. In this moment, all that mattered were the next words Jack Dalton would say.

Jack shifted his grip on Mac so that he could turn the slim blond over in his arms. After a tense moment, Matty saw his shoulders sag once more.

“He’s breathin’,” Jack reported, anxiety accentuating his drawl. “He’s still breathin’.”

Matty closed the distance between the make-shift barricade and her agents. Mac was lying lax in Jack’s lap, his head canted back across Jack’s arm, his legs sprawled before them. The blood she’d seen when he’d stumbled out of the smoky kitchen matted his hair to one side of his head and coated one eye, lashes tented from the gore. His right arm looked shredded; Jack had laid it carefully across the younger man’s chest.

“Oh, Blondie,” she breathed.

“We gotta get him help, Matty,” Bozer entreated.

“We will,” Matty assured him, anxiety turning her voice brittle. “Jack, what’s the damage?”

A shard of something metallic about the size of her hand protruded from the muscle at the top of Mac’s shoulder, and as Jack eased the young agent to the ground Matty could see debris in his blood-soaked hair as well. Between them, Bozer and Jack removed Mac’s mangled, long-sleeved shirt, carefully rolling him to the side to check his back. Matty winced when Jack pulled up the younger man’s T-shirt to reveal that the darkened bruise on his sternum was now joined by shallow cuts and bruising on his right side. The worst of the damage seemed to be sustained on his right arm and his head.

“Jesus, the kid’s one big bruise,” Jack said, taking Mac’s mangled arm into a gentle hold. “I gotta get this bleeding stopped.”

“You’re going to have to remove that piece of metal first,” Matty told him, grabbing two of the cloth napkins from the floor.

“Boze, help me,” Jack entreated. “Get what’s left of this T-shirt out of the way.”

Without hesitating, Bozer dug into the front pocket of Mac’s jeans and pulled out his Swiss Army knife. With a quiet efficiency that surprised Matty, he pulled out a blade, sliced the shirt up the front and along the back, and pulled it off Mac, avoiding the metal that punctured the meat of Mac’s shoulder. Then, he folded the knife and slid it back in Mac’s pocket. It all took less than a minute.

“You…just gonna, like…yank it out?” Bozer asked, his voice trembling. “What if you rip and artery or something?”

“The artery’s down here,” Jack replied, gesturing to Mac’s clavicle, “and if we don’t get it out, I can’t bandage it and if I can’t bandage it—”

“Okay, I get it,” Bozer nodded quickly, and Matty grimaced as she watched Bozer’s eyes skim over Mac’s battered chest.

Jack gently pressed the napkins Matty handed him against Mac’s shoulder, one shaking hand going to grip the edge of the metal. Exhaling slowly to steady himself, Jack pulled up sharply, the metal giving way as Mac cried out with pain, his legs kicking out weakly in protest.

“Easy, bud,” Jack soothed, though Mac wasn’t quite conscious.

Matty watched as Jack pressed the napkins against the wound, his hands sliding along the torn skin of Mac’s bicep. The napkins were soon saturated, so Jack tossed them to the side. Grimacing, Jack tore a section of Mac’s long-sleeved shirt free and wrapped it around his shoulder to his bicep. Matty could see almost immediately that it wasn’t going to be enough—the blood was already soaking through.

“Here,” Bozer said, pulling his belt free. “Try a tourniquet.”

“That’s tricky,” Jack told him, taking the belt. “Wound’s in a bad position…and we gotta make sure we loosen it every few minutes so that we don’t kill the blood flow, or he could lose this arm.”

Bozer blanched. Matty pulled her scarf free and handed it to Jack who took it without looking and added it to the bandage. Jack shook his head, eyes skimming down the length of Mac’s body.

“Some people collect stamps,” Jack muttered, eyes drifting over the scar from the bullet wound that was a reminder of Nikki’s betrayal. “This kid collects scars.”

“What about the head wound?” she asked.

Jack’s fingers gently palpated Mac’s scalp, pulling pieces of metal and glass free from Mac’s blond hair.  Matty saw his frown of worry deepen.

“It’s bad, Matty.”

Those three words triggered something inside her, a switch that typically never needed to be flipped. She was Matilda Webber, the Hun, devoid of the burden that came with emotion and consistently in control. But something about this team—something about this one lonely, young agent—stirred an almost maternal instinct in a heart she’d worked for years to turn to stone.

When Matty had first taken the role of Director at the Phoenix Foundation, she’d lectured Mac on his tendency to improvise not simply because he rebelled against the norm, but because the possibility of his dying utterly terrified her. He’d saved so many lives—including hers—since that time, she knew the madness behind his methods was the good kind of crazy.

And she was damned if she was going to lose him now. Steeling her resolve, Matty looked up, eyes searching for Leanna. As though feeling the pull of her boss’s gaze, Leanna made her way out of the crowd of people and came forward.

“What the status on a way out of here?” Matty asked her.

“The entrance is blocked,” Leanna regretfully reported. “I can’t even see the road.”

Matty looked at Henry Flynn—no longer leaning on Riley but still looking pale and shaky. “Is there a back door accessible from this area?”

Flynn started to nod, then halted, shooting his eyes first to Mac then to the darkened kitchen. “It’s through the kitchen,” he said, “but…there was a big hole in the floor. That’s where the gas leak was and—”

Matty held up a hand. “It’s okay, I get it. Bozer?” The young man looked up, eyes shiny with worry. “I need you to check out the kitchen.”

“I’ll go with you,” Leanna said, evidently seeing Bozer was struggling.

“Good—see if the back door is reachable and see if you can find any first aid supplies,” Matty ordered. She looked back to where the patrons behind the barricade were now all staring at her. “Is anyone here a doctor or EMT?”

The silence of their responses practically echoed through the destruction.

“Is anyone else injured?” Matty continued.

“Flynn might have a concussion,” Riley reported. “Definitely smoke inhalation.”

“I’m okay,” Flynn protested. “Mac got me out of there before it got too bad.”

“Anyone else?” Matty eyed the cut on Riley’s forehead, but the hacker just shook her head.

“My wife has a heart condition,” reported the elderly gentleman Matty had approached earlier. “But she has her pills with her.”

“I’m eight months pregnant,” reported a timid voice.

Matty inwardly sighed. That’s just what they needed. “Are you in any pain or discomfort?”

Riley eased a young Asian woman forward, bracing her arm. She was dressed in a hostess uniform, and evidently alone. She shook her head in response to Matty’s question. Out of the corner of her eyes, Matty saw Jack shrug out of his jacket and cover Mac’s bare chest, before collecting him back up into his lap, getting him off the debris-covered floor as much as he could.

“Okay,” she said, raising her voice so the people in the back could hear, “until we figure out how we’re getting out of here, this is what we’re going to do—”

“Wait.” A voice cut through the crowd and Matty narrowed her eyes, finding the source of the voice. A middle-aged, balding man in an expensive-looking business suit stepped forward, staring at her with shrewd, gray eyes. “I don’t remember anyone deciding you were in charge.”

Matty registered Riley and Jack looking at him sharply, fire in their eyes. “You’re correct, Mister….”

“DeAngelo.”

“Mr. DeAngelo,” Matty stepped forward. “And if you are qualified to handle post-disaster survival, I’m sure we all welcome the input.” Her eyes narrowed, and she felt her jaw tighten. “But one of my team was nearly killed saving our collective asses, so if you don’t mind, I am going to make a few suggestions of my own.”

DeAngelo brought his chin up, darting a look over to where Jack was holding Mac against him. “All I saw was him nearly blowing us all to hell.”

“Sir,” Flynn spoke up before Matty could figure out a way to throat-punch a man who was three-foot taller than her. “I was in there—and I can promise you, we were all screwed until Mac stopped this place from blowing sky-high.”

“Matty!” Bozer’s voice cut across the room.

Matty turned to see Leanna approaching Jack with a large, red box marked with a white cross, Bozer right behind her.

“The back door is blocked,” Bozer reported. “Looks like the foundation cracked in the quake and the oven blocked it. Leanna and I tried to move it, but—”

“Oh my God, you mean we’re trapped?” A woman exclaimed, moving forward to stand next to DeAngelo.

“We’re going to die in here,” another voice chimed in. “I gotta get back to my kids!”

“Son of a bitch—I _told_ you we should have just used Grub Hub!”

“I can’t get a cell signal—why aren’t they even trying to get in to us?”

“No one knows we’re in here—”

“Everyone SHUT UP!” Riley’s shout cut through the cacophony of panic that had started to turn the air thick.

Matty blinked in surprise, watching as the petite hacker stood in the middle of the room, her arms out to each side like a ref in a boxing match, her eyes on fire.

“Okay, that’s better,” Riley continued quietly when the voices ceased. “Now, everyone who has an actual, feasible idea for how we deal with this situation, go stand by my boss. Everyone else, sit down.”

Flynn limped forward, joined by DeAngelo. Everyone else found a chair or bench and sat down. Someone handed the pregnant woman a rolled-up coat for her back. Everyone stared at Matty.

She took a breath and looked over her shoulder to where Leanna and Jack were using the bandages in the first aid kit to try and better wrap Mac’s still-bleeding arm. Beyond the cry of pain when they pulled the metal from his shoulder, the young agent hadn’t yet shown signs of waking. Matty’s worry was ratcheting up. She wanted to help him but needed to get people focused on rescue, first.

“We need to get some kind of sign that we’re trapped in here,” Matty began. “If no one can get a cell signal, then that means trying to signal some other way.”

“We need to get people who can climb to safety near the entrance,” DeAngelo argued.

Matty shook her head, trying to quiet her temper. “We don’t want lots of people near those walls until we know how sturdy the structure is.”

“Look, lady, just because your friend is hurt doesn’t mean—”

DeAngelo’s tirade was cut short as an aftershock cut through the Earth, sending more ceiling duct work and plaster plummeting to the ground. Matty instinctively ducked and saw that Riley had curled around the pregnant woman. The tremor lasted about thirty seconds, but when it was over, the stress of the situation had reduced several of the patrons to tears and DeAngelo decided to sit down.

Matty took a slow breath. “Okay, people, we’re Californians. We live on a fault line. We can handle this.”

“Maybe we could use the table cloths like a flag,” offered the pregnant woman. “If we can get it close enough to the entrance.”

Matty smiled. “That’s brilliant! What’s your name?”

“Kira.”

Jack’s voice filtered through Matty’s attempts to organize the stressed-out patrons.

“Hey, bud,” Jack was saying softly. “C’mon, that’s it. Open those baby blues.”

Matty looked at Riley. “You got this?”

“I’m all over it,” Riley shot an anxious look toward Jack, then joined Kira in gathering up the table cloths.

“Flynn,” Matty turned to the young chef, noting his glassy eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”

He nodded, swallowing, his gaze darting repeatedly back to where Jack was bent over Mac’s sprawled form. “This is the second time he’s saved my life,” he said softly. “I just…I mean, how do you pay a guy back for that?”

“How about you do what Mac would be doing?” Matty suggested.

Flynn scoffed. “No one on the planet can do what Mac does.”

Matty smiled. “I meant, calming the people down, keeping them safe. Can you do that? Maybe get them all situated so that everyone has something to keep them busy?”

Flynn nodded rapidly. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”

A trembling voice cut a swath of pain across Matty’s heart and brought Riley’s head around sharply.

“Jack?”

“Hey, there you are,” Jack replied, and Matty could see his hands bracing either side of Mac’s head. He must have eased Mac off his lap when the younger agent began to stir. “Good to see you, kid.”

Matty moved to stand next to Jack, peering over his shoulder at Mac’s face. The young agent’s eyes were blinking sluggishly, the blue irises standing out in stark contrast to the blood that painted his skin. He lifted an uncoordinated hand, dislodging the jacket that was covering him, looking as though he was reaching for Jack. The older man grasped his partner’s hand instinctively, keeping his other at the juncture of Mac’s jawline and neck, bracing him.

“The…the RPG,” Mac muttered, his brows knitting over the bridge of his nose.

“It’s okay, kiddo,” Jack said softly, the tightness in his voice causing Matty’s breath to catch. “No RPG. You’re home. You’re back, we’re back.”

_He’s in the hurt locker, Matty._

“Heard it,” Mac protested. “From the roof…the…the other roof.”

Matty curled her hands into fists at her sides, trying desperately to keep her expression neutral. Jack pulled his hand gently away from Mac’s loose grip and carded his fingers carefully through Mac’s hair, avoiding the deep gash that Matty could still see on the right side of the blonde’s scalp.

“No RPG this time, kid,” Jack said, keeping his voice low and even. “Earthquake.”

At this Mac’s eyes tracked over to meet Jack’s and Matty could see how blown his pupils were, black eating almost all the blue. Definitely a concussion, definitely bad. He blinked at Jack as though trying to bring the older man into focus.

“You okay?” Mac murmured.

Jack sniffed, his smile tremulous. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

Mac frowned. “Something’s not…okay.”

“You’re pretty banged up, bud,” Jack told him, and Matty looked across the small expanse of the room to see all eyes were pinned to her two agents. “Do you remember the earthquake?”

“Um…,” Mac slowly licked his lips, like he was just learning the action. His words were sluggish, slow, drawn out as though the weight of them felt foreign in his mouth. “I…uh, I remember the…the fire…, and...,” he gasped, the end of it breaking off into a low groan. “Flynn! Jack—”

“Hey, Flynn’s okay, kid,” Jack reassured him, glancing across the room and drawing the young chef forward with his gaze. “He’s okay, you got him out.”

“On the…the helo?” Mac asked, his words slurring, memory obviously skipping between past and present.

“Not this time, bud,” Jack said. He looked up at Flynn as the young man knelt on the other side of Mac, near Bozer. “You got him clear of the fire before the gas line blew. Remember?”

“Hey, Mac,” Flynn said softly, and Matty saw his eyes dart over the blood-stained bandages on Mac’s arm to the blood-crusted hair, then back to his eyes. “You aiming for a free dinner or something, man?”

Mac’s eyes tracked slowly over toward Flynn’s voice, his gaze narrowing on the young man. “Fire,” he said softly. “There was…was a….”

“Yeah, you hauled my ass out of the fire,” Flynn nodded, clearing his throat.

Mac swallowed hard, nodding gingerly. “I remember.”

“Think you could move, bud?” Jack said. “Pretty sure there’s a more comfortable place to hang out than the floor.”

“Why…why’re we still…here?” Mac asked, his tone slightly spacey.

“We’re kinda stuck,” Flynn told him, moving in sync with Jack to ease an arm beneath Mac’s knees as Jack slid an arm behind Mac’s head and shoulders. “The walls turned this place into a cave.”

Matty gestured to Bozer to clear off one of the cushioned bench seats nearby and Leanna helped to clear a path of tables and chairs, setting the first aid kit on top of one of the tables. Jack nodded to Flynn and the two men lifted Mac, wincing in unison as Mac cried out from the movement, Jack’s leather jacket sliding free. They stood and moved quickly, laying Mac on the bench so that his mangled right arm was facing outward and easier to rebandage.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Mac breathed, and Matty bit the inside of her lip, remembering the same pain-filled, breathless tone surrounding that word right after he’d taken a bullet to his TAC vest. The pain seemed to clear his head a bit because the next thing she heard him say was, “No…cell signal?”

Jack didn’t bother telling him to rest; he was clearly ready to jump on anything that resembled a more-typical Mac. “I think the quake must’ve knocked out the towers—or the stone walls are blocking us or something.”

Mac’s breath rasped heavily in the quiet, a slight keening sound as he exhaled.

“Mac?” Jack thumb stroked Mac’s blood-stained cheekbone.

“H-hurts…t-to breathe,” Mac confessed.

Matty couldn’t help but think of the severely bruised sternum from the gunshot wound; getting caught in an explosion wasn’t helping matters.

“Help…help m-me up,” Mac entreated, tugging weakly at Jack’s arm.

“Okay, okay, easy,” Jack told him. “Let me do all the work.”

Jack eased Mac upright, leaning the young agent back against the padded bench and resting his left shoulder against Jack’s chest. Mac’s head lolled toward Jack’s shoulder, but his breathing seemed to ease a bit. In this light, however, his wounds looked horrendous. The bruise on his sternum blossomed out across his pectorals like a sunburst, the gauze bandage wasn’t enough to hide the damage to his right arm, and the blood painting his face made him look like a character from a Stephen King movie.

Matty wasn’t sure how he was conscious, let alone talking.

“How about we get this around you,” Jack said softly, taking his jacket from where Flynn had picked it up and sliding it behind Mac’s back, and helping him slide his left arm through the sleeve. The leather seemed to engulf Mac’s narrow torso. “Too skinny for your own good,” Jack muttered, trying to ease the jacket around Mac’s wounded shoulder.

“Ah, _God_ …my…my arm…,” Mac gasped, biting through a groan as he blinked heavy-lidded eyes, leaning against Jack’s chest. Jack let the jacket drop, hanging down Mac’s back, covering only one half of his chest.

Jack looked over at Leanna. “Is there anything for pain in that kit?”

“There’s acetaminophen,” Leanna told him almost apologetically, “but nothing stronger.”

“Shit, that’s like spitting on a forest fire, way that arm looks,” DeAngelo grumbled.

Jack shot the business man a venomous look. “Let me have it,” he said to Leanna, “and see if you can find some water.”

Leanna moved quickly and soon Jack was helping Mac swallow the pain meds. “Easy, kiddo,” Jack soothed as Mac coughed slightly with the first swallow. “There you go.”

“Lemme…lemme have your phone,” Mac breathed, closing his eyes against the pain.

Jack eased Mac to a more comfortable angle, wincing as he saw fresh blood on the bandages. “You’re just not happy until you’re breaking my phone, are you?”

“The qu-quake probably over-overloaded the bandwidth,” Mac said, his head dropping back to rest against the bench seat as Jack reached into his back pocket for his phone. “Too…too many people trying to call….” His eyes rolled closed and his lips pressed flat as an obvious wave of pain crashed into him.

“Mac?” Riley called, stepping forward in worry.

Jack lifted Mac’s left hand and folded his fingers around the cell phone. “Here you go, kid,” Jack said, pulling Mac’s attention forward once more. “What else you need?”

“M-my knife,” Mac gasped, moving his right arm carefully, his hand shaking. “And…um, gum…gum wrapper.”

“What the hell’s he think he can do?” DeAngelo asked no one in particular.

Matty ignored the man’s protest but frowned when his voice was joined by another concerned patron.

“He really should be resting; head wounds are nothing to mess around with.”

“We should be getting him some water,” another person offered. “We all need water—anyone know where we can get water?”

“He really doesn’t look good,” a fourth voice chimed in.

While they were talking, Jack had fished Mac’s Swiss Army knife from his jeans pocket and was unfolding one of the attachments.

“Don’t listen to ‘em, bud,” Jack spoke up over the slowly rising tide of concern, his eyes on Mac, one hand resting gently on the young agent’s shoulder, the other steadying the phone in Mac’s weak grip. “You’ve saved more lives than anyone in this room.” He glanced over at the others, his eyes missing no one. “You just do your thing.”

“T-take…take the casing off,” Mac instructed, lines of pain folding his expression. He grunted, trying to steady his right hand with his left, but Matty could see the shoulder wound had bled through the latest bandage Jack had applied. “N-need to get to wh-where the…the s-sim card is.”

Matty watched as Jack became Mac’s hands, following the blonde’s stuttered instructions without question or complaint.

“Okay, done. Now what?” Jack asked. “Shit, that’s right. You need a gum wrapper. Um….” He patted his shirt pockets with one hand, glancing first toward Matty, then across the room to Bozer.

“Here,” Flynn stepped forward, a silver stick of gum in his outstretched hand. “All I got’s Wrigley Spearmint, though.”

Mac actually huffed a small laugh. “S’okay,” he said, taking the wrapper in his trembling hand and starting to fold it.

It was a torturous few minutes, watching Mac painstakingly fold the wrapper and insert it into the phone. Finally, Mac nodded and told Jack to turn the phone on. The group collectively flinched when a squelch of static came over the speaker before the unmistakable sound of a rescue worker’s radio.

“Did you just hack 911?” Riley asked, incredulous.

Jack looked at his phone. “You just turned my smartphone into a walkie-talkie, didn’t you?”

“All ph-phones connect to 911…no…no matter if they have…have service,” Mac managed, his head dropping back to rest against the booth, his words slowing and slurring together. “Just had to connect…to…to that circuit.” His eyes widened slightly, rolling as though he couldn’t focus on any one thing, and he slowly cradled the wounded right arm with a trembling left. “C-call for…for help, Jack.”

“Mac?” Jack was on one knee, leaning over his partner. The walkie-talkie smart phone was hanging loosely from his grip. Riley darted close to collect it before it hit the ground as Jack reached for Mac’s slumping form. “Hey, kid, talk to me.”

“’m hurt…hurting,” Mac gasped. “Feel…feel like…like glass….”

Mac’s slurred voice suddenly tapered to nothing and Matty watched with barely concealed horror as the young man’s blue eyes rolled back into his head. He went alarmingly limp before his body suddenly stiffened and he began to seize, harsh breaths puffing out through parted lips.

“Mac!”

“Lay him on his side,” came a heavily-accented voice from the crowd of concerned onlookers.

Matty turned to see one of the kitchen workers Bozer had ushered into the main room stepping forward, pulling off his white jacket as he did so. Jack obeyed, easing Mac to his left side so that his wounded arm was upright. The kitchen worker folded his white jacket and slid it under Mac’s head as the harsh jerks and flinches stopped.

“What happened? What was that?” Jack asked, kneeling next to Mac, one hand on his back, the other against his chest.

“He has a traumatic brain injury, by the look of this wound,” the kitchen worker stated. “Seizures are not uncommon with severe concussions.”

Jack looked over at the other man in surprise. “Who the hell are you?”

“I was about to ask the same thing,” Matty chimed in, stepping forward.

She eyed the dark-skinned man critically. He had scars on either side of his mouth reminiscent of a Glasgow smile, and his black hair was cut short enough to expose additional scars along his scalp. But his brown eyes were filled with concern.

“How do you know how to handle a TBI?”

“I was an Army medic,” the man replied.

“And yet you said nothing when I asked if there was a doctor here,” Matty pointed out, setting her hands on her hips.

The man looked between Matty and Jack, then let his eyes rest on Mac’s now-supine form. “It was not _your_ Army,” he clarified.

Matty looked at Flynn, who shrugged in response. “I needed kitchen workers…and I didn’t ask a lot of questions,” he replied.

“Okay, Mr. Medic,” Jack replied. “Now that you’re finally here, can you help him?”

“I may be able to,” the man replied. “Let me look at your kit.”

“What about the phone?” DeAngelo pointed out. Matty barely kept herself from growling at him. “I mean…the kid went to all that trouble…shouldn’t we use it?”

“I got this, Matty,” Riley told her, staring daggers at DeAngelo.

Riley headed toward what had once been the front of the restaurant, the sound of her heels clicking on the stone floor fading as she disappeared from view. For a moment, Matty felt at a loss. After everything she’d been through in her life—growing up facing down all those who saw her stature as a disability, to acting as a CIA Operative, to Director at the Phoenix Foundation—a natural disaster should be nothing.

So…why were her hands shaking? And why could she feel tears of panic burning the backs of her eyes?

_He’s in the hurt locker, Matty. And I…I gotta help him._

She could do this. She did this every day. She turned to Flynn.

“Divide people up,” she ordered, her voice clipped and professional. “Figure out if we can get any food, water, use table cloths as blankets…that kind of thing.”

“You think we’ll have to be here long?” Flynn asked.

“I have no idea,” Matty sighed, rubbing at the slowly building headache between her eyes. “We could get out of here in five minutes or five hours. We need to be prepared for both.”

Flynn nodded, swallowing hard as he looked over to where the former Medic was looking through the first aid kit. Bozer hovered closer than the man’s shadow, chewing his lip apart in his worry.

“Bozer,” Matty called. “Help Flynn.”

“But, Mac—”

Matty looked at Leanna.

“C’mon, babe,” Leanna cajoled, tucking her hand under Bozer’s bicep. “You won’t be far away.”

With her team busy, Matty climbed up on the bench near Mac’s head and gently ran her fingers through his tangled, blond hair.

“What should we call you?” Matty asked the Medic, wondering if the man would give them his actual name.

“My name is Ben-Aryeh Harim,” he glanced at Matty, “but you may call me Ben.”

_Israeli_ , Matty realized. That explained the reticence to reveal himself earlier. 

“Ben,” Matty nodded. “Can you help him?”

Mac lay sprawled on the bench seat, his breath rasping roughly through parted lips. Jack’s leather jacket covered one arm and part of his chest and hung from the bench beneath his right side. Ben gently palpated Mac’s head, wincing at the visible laceration running along Mac’s hairline. He opened each of Mac’s eyes, shining the flashlight from his cell phone in one, then the other. Carefully, he lifted away the edge of the jacket, hissing at the bruising he saw there.

“This bruising appears to be percussion trauma, which would make sense given the TBI, but…,” he frowned, tilting Mac’s head to the side. “I would have expected the damage to be to the back of his head if the blast damaged his chest in this way.”

“That’s not from today,” Jack reported, from where he knelt next to the bench, his voice tangled with emotion. “He took a bullet to the vest yesterday.”

Matty heard someone gasp and another whistle low, but she couldn’t tell if the person was dismayed or impressed. Ben simply nodded and began to unwind the saturated bandage at Mac’s shoulder.

“His wounds are grave,” Ben stated, unbuckling the belt holding the bandages in place. “We need to get him out of here as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, tell us something we don’t know, Hoss,” Jack muttered, not moving from his kneeling perch.

Ben muttered something in Hebrew as he pulled the bandages from Mac’s shoulder with a wet-sounding _squelch._

“There is still metal in the wounds,” he said, his expression serious. “Do we have any clean water? A small bottle would do.”

Matty looked around the room.

“Well, I mean,” Flynn gestured at the table where they’d gathered the remaining water glasses. “There’s this.”

Ben shook his head. “There is too much possibility of bacteria,” he replied, glancing at the first aid kit. “Hand me the bottle of hydrogen peroxide, if you would.”

Jack stood and grabbed the bottle. Ben rubbed his top lip, looking from Mac’s wound to the first aid kit, then around the room.

“I need a ketchup bottle,” Ben said, as he reached out for the bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

“You need a _what_ now?” Jack asked, pulling the brown bottle of peroxide back out of the Medic’s reach.

Ben sighed. “We need to flush out the wound. To do that, I need something that will create force or pressure, like a squeeze bottle.”

Jack looked over at Matty. “I think Mac’s brain is contagious,” he muttered, before shooting a look to the people gathering food from dinner plate left-overs. “Flynn!”

“Here,” Flynn called back.

“You got a ketchup bottle you can somehow wash out for me?” Jack shouted, adding quickly, “And don’t ask me why.”

“I can do you one better,” Flynn called back. “Kira, can you have someone get one of the empty bottles from under that bench you’re sitting on?”

Kira nodded and stood, waiting patiently as DeAngelo raised the seat to reveal a secret storage, then grabbed an empty ketchup bottle from within. Flynn shrugged off Jack’s curious look.

“Kitchen’s not that big,” Flynn replied. “I had to get creative.”

“Toss that here,” Jack waved at DeAngelo, catching the bottle as it was lobbed his way. Jack emptied the bottle of hydrogen peroxide into the ketchup bottle and screwed the lid back on, tight.

“This will be very painful,” Ben told them. “It is usually done with sterile water, but lacking that, we are going to…improvise. You know this word?” Ben asked, eyes darting between Jack and Matty.

“Uh, yeah,” Jack replied. “We’re familiar.”

“Using hydrogen peroxide in this way is not really advisable—there is a chance it could ultimately delay healing. But leaving the metal in there will build bacteria and cause infection…and worse, we won’t be able to stop the bleeding.”

“We’re trusting you, Ben,” Matty told him. “And…Mac is pretty much the Prince of Improvisation, so he’d trust you, too.”

Ben nodded, swallowing anxiously. “Someone will need to hold him,” he said, squaring his shoulders as though he was preparing for battle. “And have a clean…towel, or napkin or…whatever we can find, to help clear the blood away.”

“Jack,” Matty called, sliding down from the bench. “Sit here.”

Jack took her seat, carefully pulling Mac’s head and shoulders onto his lap, one arm resting on Mac’s bruised chest, the other on the crown of Mac’s head. Mac’s blood-stained face was tilted toward Matty and the open room, his lips slightly parted, lines of pain between his brows. He looked so young in that moment, Matty wanted to both cry and punch someone for what was about to happen to him.

“Matty!” Riley’s voice echoed slightly as she hurried back from where she’d been pressed against the blocked entrance to the restaurant.

“Did you get through?”

“What did they say?”

“Are they coming in to get us?”

Riley was bombarded with worried tones and anxious faces, the sheer volume of fear pulling her up short and sending her dark eyes darting around the room until she found Matty. Anchoring on her boss, Riley made her way forward, Jack’s jury-rigged cell phone held carefully in her grip.

“I got through,” she reported. “Took a bit for them to believe I wasn’t pulling some prank,” her mouth twisted into a frustrated frown. “They kept telling me they were dealing with an _actual_ emergency.”

“Huh,” Jack huffed. “Welcome to the party, pal.”

“But once I convinced them I was legit,” Riley continued, “they found our tablecloth flag—thanks for that, Kira,” Riley shot Kira a grin. “So…the good news is that they know where we are and that we need help.”

“What’s the bad news?” DeAngelo asked, warily.

Riley grimaced. “It’s going to take them a few hours to get us out safely.”

“Son of a bitch,” Jack muttered, rubbing the top of his head.

“Were you able to ask them for any supplies?” Matty asked, calmly, though her heart was fluttering with anxiety like a panicked bird in a cage. “Water, bandages…?”

Riley nodded. “I asked for water, food, and medical supplies. They are trying to find a place they can send anything in to us without dislodging the debris. Once they find it, they’ll radio me.” She waggled the phone.

“So, what do we do until then?” Kira asked.

“We wait, I guess,” Riley sighed, looking with worried eyes toward where Ben and Jack surrounded Mac.

“Flynn,” Matty called, “keep it up.”

Flynn nodded to her.

“Riley,” Matty said softly. “We are going to need to keep these people calm. Especially after Ben does what I think he’s going to do.”

“What do you…?”

“Pain is a troubling sound,” Ben said, matching Matty’s tone. “And when trapped somewhere they cannot escape from the sound, people are apt to react…poorly.”

Riley nodded, swallowing hard.  She sank down to a chair next to Matty.

“Are you ready?” Ben looked at Jack.

Matty felt Riley’s hand slip into hers and she squeezed the young hacker’s fingers in support.

“I got him,” Jack replied, nodding at the Medic.

Ben nodded back, then held Mac’s arm steady as he began to squeeze the hydrogen peroxide against the puncture wound and the deep slice that ran along Mac’s bicep. The result was instantaneous.

A sound of agony was ripped from Mac’s throat, a wordless scream that tore at Matty’s heart. His neck arched as he pressed his head against Jack’s legs, trying to pull away from the pain. Riley’s fingers tightened on hers and Matty’s eyes burned as she watched Jack try to soothe his young partner.

“Easy, kid, you’re okay…just breathe.”

“No…stop… _ahhh_!” Mac was sobbing, his eyes screwed shut as his body shook, and still Ben continued to flush out the wound as best he could. “Jack…JACK!” Mac rasped, left arm flailing weakly, pleading for his partner to protected him from this onslaught of torture. “ _Nnnrrghhh_ …please… _please_ …Jack!”

Matty could see tears coursing down Jack’s face as he caught Mac’s left hand and tried to keep his friend from bucking his wounded body away from the care he needed.

“I’m here, kid,” Jack said softly, his voice thick with emotion. “I’m here, I’m right here.”

Finally, Ben dropped the squeeze bottle and Mac slumped a bit against the bench, his breath choking and hitching. Jack wiped tears from his own face with the back of his hand before returning it to the top of Mac’s head.

“I am finished,” Ben said, taking the clean napkins he’d found and wiping away the blood that coursed down Mac’s arm from the wound. Matty saw that a puddle of blood and fluid had gathered on the floor beneath the bench. “But I cannot tell if I’ve gotten all of the metal from the wound.”

“Fuck sakes,” breathed a voice from behind Matty. She looked over her shoulder to see DeAngelo standing off to the side, looking pale and shaky. “Give the kid a goddamn break. Metal or no metal, what’s it matter?”

“If we do not get the metal out,” Ben explained patiently, “we may not be able to stop the bleeding. And even if we are, he may develop a fever.”

“Do we have anything else to clean out the wound?” Matty asked, dismayed to hear the tremble of her voice.

“All we have are bandages and antibiotic ointment,” Ben reported. “Like our friend there said earlier, it is like spitting on a forest fire.”

“Do what you can for him, please, Ben,” Matty entreated. “He’s…,” she had to pause and clear her throat. “He’s very important to us.”

Ben nodded and began to wrap the gauze bandages around Mac’s shoulder and arm, the young agent’s desperate gasps for air becoming tight and thin. Jack continued to stroke Mac’s hair from his face, nonsensical words spilling unceasingly from his lips in an effort to soothe his partner. When Mac’s breath stuttered to a stop for a few seconds too long, Jack looked up at Ben.

“He ain’t breathin’ right, man,” Jack said, tears in his voice and on his face. “What do we do?”

Ben’s dark brows pulled tight across the bridge of his nose. “It may be the previous wound was exacerbated by the blast,” he said. “Can you prop him up against you? The change in position seemed to help him before.”

Jack was in action before Ben finished speaking. He turned sideways, sliding backwards until he rested against one of the broken pieces of wall that now bisected the cushioned bench. With one leg outstretched and the other braced on the floor, Jack gently pulled Mac toward him so that the young agent’s back was against Jack’s front, Mac’s head canted back against Jack’s shoulder, the jacket tucked up around him.

Matty couldn’t seem to pull her eyes from the bright red of Mac’s blood soaking into the white of Jack’s dress shirt. It was as if she were watching both bleed out before her eyes. And part of her knew that—metaphorical or not—if they weren’t able to save Mac, they would lose Jack, too.

Within seconds, Mac’s breathing began to ease until it was a regular tempo; the rough edge of pain was still present, but he was no longer struggling just to pull air in. Matty watched as both Jack and Mac seemed to visibly relax in this position, Jack keeping one hand on Mac’s head and the other bracing his left side.

It had been a long time since Matty had seen one of her agents this wounded, and it hurt. It _really_ hurt. She turned to Riley.

“I need you to try to get through to Oversight,” she said. “Do you think you can?”

Riley blinked in surprise, then frowned at the phone in her hand. “I’m not even sure how Mac got this to work,” she confessed. “But…maybe I could have one of the cops I was talking to get him?”

Matty nodded. “He needs to know how bad Mac is,” she said. “Maybe he can make things move a bit faster.”

Riley gave Matty a single nod, then headed toward where she and Kira had shoved the table cloth through a crack in the collapsed walls.

“Jack…,” Mac’s exhausted, wrecked voice drew everyone’s attention.

“I’m right here, kid,” Jack reassured him, his hand trembling as he pushed Mac’s hair from his sweaty face.

“’s the helo get…getting here…soon?” Mac asked, turning his face toward the pressure of Jack’s hand.

Matty winced at the pain that swam across Jack’s features.

_He’s in the hurt locker, Matty. And I…I gotta help him._

“Yeah, kid. It’ll be here, soon.”

“We…get everyone…out?” Mac hadn’t opened his eyes, but Matty saw him reach for Jack’s arm as though knowing right where the man would be.

“Everyone’s out,” Jack told him. “You did real good, kid.”

“’kay,” Mac sighed, his body seeming to sink a bit as it went lax, his arm sliding down to rest near his narrow hips.

Jack scrambled pressing his fingers under Mac’s jaw until he found what he was looking for. “Man, it’s weak, but it’s there.”

“He has lost a lot of blood,” Ben said, regretfully. “He needs fluids.”

“How the hell you gonna do that?” DeAngelo commented. “Kid’s barely alive as it is—not like he’s gonna be up for downing a few bottles of water.”

“Okay, look, pal—" Jack started.

“Mr. DeAngelo,” Flynn broke in, gesturing toward a group of restaurant patrons he’d tasked with organizing the food and water. He’d removed his white chef’s jacket and had rolled up the sleeves of his black dress shirt, exposing the edges of a tattoo on his left forearm. “How about you pull up a piece of floor? Take a load off.”

“I’m good, thanks.” DeAngelo waved Flynn off.

Flynn took a step forward, his shoulders squared, and Matty suddenly saw a soldier where before had stood a young, untested chef.

“Mr. DeAngelo,” Flynn repeated. “I want you to sit down, sir.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you want—”

“Mr. DeAngelo!” Flynn barked, making even Matty jump. “Sit. Down. Sir.”

DeAngelo stepped away from Flynn, eyes wide, then sat down with his back to the wall. Matty narrowed her eyes at the business man, watching as he pulled a pack of cigarettes and a thin, gold lighter from the interior pocket of his suit jacket, lighting a smoke and exhaling upwards. Flynn turned back to the other patrons just as Riley came back into the room, her face sweaty, expression grim.

“They are going to send water and bandages down through the break in the ceiling,” Riley reported, pointing to a small hole off in the corner.

“Can you ask them for a few IV bags of saline with a 14-gauge catheter?” Ben specified.

“And can we get word out to our kids?”

“How about food, are they going to send food?”

Riley walked away while questions were still being tossed her way, presumably to ask for the saline. Matty looked back over at Jack and Mac. The younger man’s face was frighteningly pale, the older man’s face lined with tension and fear. Mac was shivering slightly, unconsciously pressing closer to Jack’s body as if in search of heat—or comfort.

Jack, though…there was something in his expression that scared her. He didn’t seem to be tracking with the worried activity that had surrounded Riley’s return. Sweat that had gathered on his forehead and temples ran unchecked into his eyes, and the hand that wasn’t pushing Mac’s hair from his face was visibly trembling.

She took a slow breath and approached him.

“He’s still here, Jack,” she reminded him. “You’re doing everything you can.”

“I can’t lose him, Matty,” Jack sniffed. He looked up at her and the utter devastation she saw in his eyes almost took her breath away. She’d seen that look two other times on this man’s face—when their final mission as CIA operatives went south, and when Murdoc kidnapped Mac. “I can’t.”

“You’re not going to lose him,” Matty promised, willing the words to be true as she sent them out into the universe. She stepped closer, putting her hand on Jack’s to still its trembling. Something in her heart slipped sideways when he wrapped his large fingers around hers and held on tight. “We just got him back,” she gave him a half smile. “We’ve got too much for him to do.”

She watched Ben check Mac’s pulse, then frowned as Mac’s shivering increased.

“Is he having another seizure?”

Ben shook his head. “It is shock.” He glanced around the room. “We must keep him warm.”

“Here!” said Kira from where she was collecting the table cloths. “Use these.”

Ben accepted the table cloths gratefully, then propped Mac’s booted feet up on a broken piece of chair as he covered him from bandaged shoulder to ankle, using Jack’s body to anchor the make-shift blankets. Mac groaned, his head turning weakly against Jack’s shoulder. Even unconscious, Matty could see that he was in pain.

“Bozer!” Riley called suddenly. “Leanna. Over here!”

Matty looked around as her two agents followed the sound of Riley’s voice. Minutes later, the three came back with a flat of bottled water, which Bozer and Leanna helped distribute among the patrons sitting in different groups around the small room. Riley headed straight to Ben with her armload.

“Two bags of saline with 14-gauge catheters,” she reported. “Bandages and ibuprofen. And I’ve got an _actual_ walkie-talkie,” she grinned.

“Better than nothing,” Jack muttered.

Ben nodded in agreement, pulling Mac’s left arm from beneath the table cloth and starting an IV in the back of his hand so as not to dislodge the jacket helping to keep Mac warm. He propped a piece of broken chandelier up to hang the IV bag above their heads.

Matty gripped Riley’s hand. “Thank you,” she smiled. “Did you manage to reach Oversight?”

Riley rolled her eyes. “We got a message to him, but who knows if he’ll do anything about it.”

“At least you got the message out.”

“Hey, so…,” DeAngelo called out, leaning against a wall across the small room from where Mac lay against Jack, wringing a bottle of water between his hands. “What did you mean that this kid had saved more lives than anyone in this room? You don’t actually _know_ who’s in this room,” he pointed out. “I mean, you didn’t even know Ben, there, was a Medic. I bet he’s saved a life or two.”

Ben looked down at his hands, a sad smile on his face. “In an abundance of counselors there is safety,” he said softly.

Matty saw Jack tilt his head at that, but he kept quiet.

“Look,” DeAngelo continued, sipping his lukewarm water. “I fully admit to being your basic L.A. schmuck. Any life I saved was because someone took my car keys away, you know what I’m saying?”

“Unfortunately,” Riley muttered.

“But…I mean, who else we got here? Firefighters? Cops?”

“I am a Marine,” came a soft voice from the back of the room.

“Semper Fi,” Jack called out, lifting his chin.

“You?” the voice called in return.

Matty could see the voice was from a young Hispanic man with close-cropped, dark hair. He sat with his arms wrapped around bent knees, a young African American girl leaning against him. They’d clearly been on a date, both dressed in nicer clothes.

“Delta,” Jack replied.

“Damn,” the young Marine whistled low. “You’re bad ass, man. What about your boy, there?”

“EOD,” Jack told him, carding a hand through Mac’s hair.

“Well, hell,” the Marine exhaled, looking over at DeAngelo. “He’s right, dude. That guy…doing what he did? He probably saved a hundred guys every week.”

“I’m just saying, I’m sure he’s great and all, but he’s just a _guy_ ,” DeAngelo defended himself. “No better or worse than you or me.”

Jack huffed a tired laugh. “He’d be the first to agree with you,” he replied. “And then he’d build some amazing contraption using…refrigerator coils, paperclips, and a soup can that would end up saving your life.”

“What?” DeAngelo shook his head. “You’re talking crazy.”

“He’s not, though,” Bozer spoke up. “I’ve seen him do it.”

Riley raised her hand. “Same.”

“Mr. DeAngelo,” Flynn spoke up suddenly, straddling a backwards-turned chair and holding a bottle of water by the neck as though it had personally insulted him. “Let me ask you this…what were you doing in 2011?”

DeAngelo blinked in confusion. “Hell, I don’t know. That was, like…seven years ago, man.”

“I remember exactly what I was doing,” Flynn stated. “I was in Kandahar, with those guys,” he pointed toward Jack and Mac, “trying to keep the Taliban under some kind of control.”

“Yes, well, we get it: you all are old war buddies—”

“Nah, it wasn’t war,” Flynn shook his head. “It was worse.”

Matty watched as his eyes slid from DeAngelo’s face and landed somewhere in the middle distance, lost in his memories. It was a look she’d seen at home on both Mac and Jack’s faces much too often.

“It was…this dizzying, constant fear. Never knowing if you were going to walk down the street and get blown up by an IED. Or if the kid playing soccer with his friends on the corner was rigged with a bomb that could kill you at a moment’s notice. Or if your buddy was coming back to barracks when he’s sent out on patrol.”

Thankfully, DeAngelo was quiet. Flynn sighed.

“Y’know, given enough time, water can cut through a mountain. It just…erodes away the hardest substance on Earth by a constant, repetitive motion. Flowing against it, over and over and over until the rock simply starts to disappear.” Flynn’s voice had taken on a steady, almost droning quality, his hands tightening around the water bottle. “And sometimes, the rock has to…move,” Flynn said, looking up, his eyes resting on where Mac lay against Jack for a moment before drifting back to the floor. “It can’t stand against the steady beat of the water and it just gets carried away by the current.”

Matty listened to Flynn, her eyes on Mac.

“That’s what Afghanistan did,” Flynn revealed. “It wasn’t heroic, though there were certainly heroes there. It wasn’t patriotic; it wasn’t honorable. It was water on rock, wearing us all down until we came home, and we weren’t the same shape we were when we left.”

“Damn, Flynn,” Jack broke in, tears in his voice once more. “Couldn’t have said it better, man.”

“Oorah,” agreed the young Marine.

Matty felt a slight shifting beneath her feet, not enough to shake the walls loose, but enough to make her feel queasy. She met Riley’s eyes, then looked toward Bozer and Leanna. They’d all felt it, too, but no one said anything as the rest of the people in the room seemed to be too tired or too traumatized to react to a little aftershock.

Riley’s walkie-talkie squelched, and she jumped up, heading toward where she got the best reception.

“How’s he doing, Jack?” Matty asked quietly.

Jack was helping Ben wrap gauze around Mac’s head in an attempt to keep the deep laceration from getting more debris into it, should another aftershock hit.

“No better,” Jack intoned. “But…maybe not worse?” He seemed to be pleading with Ben to agree.

“Unfortunately, I believe he is developing a fever,” Ben revealed, dejectedly. He pressed the backs of his fingers against Mac’s cheek. “We won’t be able to do much but keep him hydrated and try to keep the wounds from bleeding more…and maybe they are able to get to us soon.”

“Soonest is six hours,” Riley reported, returning to the room, weariness in every line of her being. The chorus of regret and denial was like a wave of sound impacting her. “I’m sorry, but they have to figure out how to remove one wall without another falling down on us.”

“It’s like ultimate Jenga,” Bozer commented from where he and Leanna were slumped against the wall near DeAngelo. “Only when you lose, you _lose_.”

“Can Mac last six hours?” Jack asked Ben.

Ben swallowed, checking the IV bag. “We will make sure he does,” he replied.

Matty looked around at the weary, dejected faces. “Why don’t we all try to get some rest,” she suggested. “There’s not much we can do until they figure out the best way to move some walls.”

“If Mac were awake, he’d have already figured it out,” Bozer grumbled.

DeAngelo scoffed.

“I’m dead serious, man,” Bozer argued. “His brain just doesn’t work like the rest of us. I’ve known the guy since we were ten and some of the things he’s been able to create using common objects just lying around are _insane_.”

“Saw him build a welder using jumper cables, a generator, and a couple of quarters,” Jack reported.

“Fixed my radiator using egg whites,” Riley said. She gave them a half-smile. “I’m still trying to get that smell out of my car.”

“How about a laser microphone from a CD player and a solar light photocell?” Matty remembered with a grin, thinking of the blonde’s ingenious way to communicate with them when he and Jack had been trapped inside his rigged-to-explode house.

“Don’t forget the lightning battery thing,” Jack reminded them. “Kid literally caught lightning in a glass jar to charge up a Sat phone and get us rescued.”

Ben blinked. “Do you mean he built a Leyden jar?”

“Whatever it’s called, it was damn impressive,” Jack lifted a shoulder, his face softening with smile.

Matty watched as Jack carded his fingers through Mac’s hair, his other arm wrapped carefully around Mac’s torso, offering him any warmth he could. His hand wasn’t trembling any longer, but she felt that the man was holding on by a very thin thread.

“Okay, he’s smart, sure,” DeAngelo shrugged. “But he still managed to get himself half blown up. All I’m saying.”

“He got half blown up making sure we didn’t _all_ blow up, you jackass,” Flynn practically growled. “He _saved_ you.”

DeAngelo just shook his head, looking away.

“Hey, Flynn,” Bozer spoke up, clearly needing to keep himself distracted. “What were you talking about earlier—the last time you saw these guys?”

Flynn looked over at Jack. “That’s really more your story than mine,” he said.

“Hell,” Jack shook his head. “It’s Mac’s story, but he’d never tell it.”

“How about you tell it for him,” Matty suggested, sitting down on the ground and leaning against the bench near Jack’s leg.

He needed something to ground him, she knew. And since his mind kept sliding back to that time anyway—in part due to Mac’s confused questions when he was semi-coherent—maybe talking about it was the best way to keep him present. Until they had Mac back with them.

“It might help me understand better how to help him when we get out of here, too.”

Jack glanced around the room, eyes finally resting on Riley. “You sure? It’s not exactly a pretty story.”

“I’d like to know, Jack,” Riley confessed. “Mac’s always so closed off about so many things. I mean, I feel like I know him, but sometimes there’s this…wall around him, y’know? It’d be good to know how we could be better friends to him.”

Jack looked at the cluster of restaurant patrons grouped together at the back of the small room. “You all feel free to go to sleep,” he told them. He rested a hand on the crown of Mac’s bandaged head once more. “This is really only going to mean something to the ones who know this kid.”

“Tell your story,” the elderly gentleman entreated. “Perhaps we all would like to know that kid.”

Jack nodded, dropping his eyes to stare at nothing. Or, Matty suspected, to stare at something none of them could see.

“Well, like Mac said earlier, it was forty-two days until his tour was up…and I’d re-upped to be right there with him. His EOD unit had been temporarily reassigned to Kandahar until another unit could be called up….”


	3. Chapter 3

**Kandahar, Afghanistan**  
October, 2011  
0900  
_Jack_

“C’mon, you’re not serious,” Jack scoffed over their comms. “You had to dress up as like, Spidey, or, wait, I know…The Flash. Just once.”

 _“I’m telling you,”_ Mac’s low voice, holding more weight than his nineteen years should, came through Jack’s earpiece with crystal clarity. _“I never dressed up for Halloween.”_

Jack blinked sweat from his eyes, shifting his weight slightly so that he could rotate the sight on his AR-50, making sure to check both the front and back of the alley where Mac was currently crouched, disarming an IED he’d spotted from the road. October in Afghanistan was not too bad, as far as temperature went. But, even a nice, breezy day got hot with over 80 pounds of gear and a 30-pound rifle to carry.

Jack had often grumbled about wearing his IOTV—especially the groin plate, for the chafing factor alone—but once he’d been assigned Overwatch to the slowest EOD Tech on the planet, he gladly geared up. He was pretty sure he’d need all the protection Uncle Sam was willing to provide.

Blinking the sweat from his eyes, Jack rotated slightly again, focusing in on Mac’s back, the kid’s ruck sack having been set aside so as not to hamper his movement. Jack could see a set of crimpers next to a roll of duct tape on the ground next to Mac’s knee. He grimaced, suspecting that the kid had pulled out his old stand-by: that damn Swiss Army knife.

He’d seen other Specialists use a multi-tool when working to disarm ordnance, but none of them had used a little knife their Granddad gave them for a birthday eight years ago.

“Want to know my favorite costume from when I was a kid?” Jack asked, having learned a few months ago that asking Mac if he was about done only made the waiting that much more nerve wracking.

 _“Can you remember back that far?”_ MacGyver teased. His tone was light, but Jack could hear the underlying tension he’d conditioned himself to listen for; the kid was worried.

Jack scoffed into their comms. “Oh, so it’s the smart ass, is it? That’s how we’re playing it today?”

Mac chuckled softly. _“Okay, Jack. Tell me.”_

Jack felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and he shifted his sight, catching what could have been the edge of a burqa or a shifting curtain out of the corner of his eye. The kid was way too exposed in that alley. His slim back was curved toward Jack’s window, his body shielding the ordnance he was working to disarm.

Jack counted four different windows and at least seven rooftop vantage points where someone with a rifle like his could take Mac out faster than he could say Carl’s Junior. Knowing one slip of one wire could end Mac in a second wasn’t half as terrifying as the idea that a rifle or RPG could come out of one of those windows and erase the kid before Jack could stop it.

“I’m ten years old. _Return of the Jedi_ had come out like the year before,” Jack started.

 _“Lemme guess,”_ Mac grunted, and Jack narrowed his sight on his partner. He could see that Mac had shifted from a crouch—a position that signaled a quick, easy bomb—to a kneeling position. This one was giving him trouble. _“You finally thawed out your Han Solo from the block of ice in the freezer.”_

“Well, duh,” Jack scoffed. “He was good as new, too. But you’re missing the point.”

 _“There’s a point?”_ Mac half-gasped and Jack saw his elbow jerk back as though he’d been tugging on something.

Jack felt the shadow move again, though he hadn’t seen it through his sight. Pulling his head back slightly from his weapon, he blinked twice, focusing his vision and did a quick visual sweep of the rooftops.

Something wasn’t right. It was too quiet.

“There’s always a point,” Jack admonished the kid before shifting his sight once more down the alley. “My buddy Casey Riggs was having a Halloween party and I needed a kick-ass costume,” Jack continued. “I heard that Casey was going as one of the _Ghostbusters_ and this dude was always out-doing me. I had to be cooler than Casey Riggs, man.”

And then he saw the rifle barrel.

It was a slim line, barely parting the curtains of an opened window roughly 600 meters away from Jack. This far from target, there was no way he could hear the _glu-click_ of a round being chambered, but something in him knew exactly when the shooter was ready to pull the trigger.

So, he shot first.

His finger scarcely flinched, the recoil absorbed in the padding at his shoulder, the low blast barely discernible to his ears anymore. It was just one more sound he took for granted—like the beat of his own pulse, the _phwap-phwap_ of a helo’s rotating blades, or the _buh-shuu_ of the men’s soft snoring in the barracks.

The barrel disappeared, and Jack saw a burst of red on the curtains.

Shifting his sight back to his Tech, he saw that Mac was half-turned toward his window, having heard the shot, but unable to pinpoint the location. Through the scope, he could see from the kid’s wide, blue eyes that Mac wasn’t able to find him.

“Anyway,” Jack continued, watching with something akin to relieved satisfaction as MacGyver’s slim shoulders sagged and his eyes closed briefly at the sound of Jack’s voice. He turned back to the ordnance. “My mom is the coolest person on the planet, dude. She got all her church ladies to collect up the cardboard boxes they got their groceries in and bring them over. And then we turned my BMX into the Millennium Falcon.”

 _“Your what?”_ Mac asked, a smile caught in his voice. Good. He was finally getting the better end of that mother.

“BMX,” Jack repeated. “Dirt bike. C’mon, don’t tell me you haven’t seen _E.T_.”

 _“I’ve seen it,”_ Mac said, and Jack scanned the alley once more as the kid sat back on his heels.

“Then you know,” Jack asserted. “Back then, a kid’s bike was everything, man. And that year? Mine was the fastest hunk ‘a junk in the galaxy.”

 _“Take that Casey Riggs,”_ Mac chuckled, and Jack saw him gathering his crimper and tape, pushing to his feet.

“Damn straight,” Jack grinned, straightening up from the sight and looking down to where Mac was moving the now-diffused IED to the side of the alley. “’bout time, man. Think you set a new longest-bomb-diffusion-ever record with that one.”

Mac didn’t reply, but Jack could see the kid’s helmet shake back and forth with amusement or exasperation, he wasn’t sure. Didn’t matter. The kid was still alive and because of him, no soldiers would be blown up when they drove over this particular IED.

Lives saved, job done.

Jack stood, folding down the portable stand that steadied his rifle, and untwisting the strap from around his arm before slinging it over his shoulder. He reached for his ruck, eyes darting through the window toward where Mac was making his way down the alley toward him.

“Let’s pop smoke—” Jack broke off when he saw a man dressed in gray and white perahan tunban—a civilian, not a soldier—dart out of an open door and head directly for MacGyver.

“Kid!” Jack shouted, watching as the civilian threw something toward Mac.

Jack dropped his ruck and pulled his rifle around to the front in one move, stumbling back as dust and debris blew skyward from whatever the man had thrown. For one terrifying second, he couldn’t see MacGyver through the dust and smoke. The civilian had turned and ran the minute he’d thrown the explosive. Finally, after what felt like a heart-stopping eternity, Jack saw Mac’s slim form dart out of the cloud of dirt and head right for the man, taking him down in an impressive flying tackle for someone Mac’s size.

Jack was torn between heading down to street level or staying on Overwatch from his perch. He pulled the gun to his shoulder, sighting on where Mac and the civilian were trading punches. Mac got a few good hits in before the man grabbed what looked like a rock and slammed it against the side of Mac’s helmet hard enough to ring the kid’s bell. Mac slumped off to the side and the man stood, calling in Farsi toward another house.

“Oh, hell no,” Jack muttered as two more men headed toward where Mac was now on his knees.

The kid raised his hands and Jack saw that each of the civilians held a gun—Berretta M9 service pistols. They had taken those weapons from American soldiers. They had no intention of letting Mac live—and that just wasn’t going to work for Jack.

Exhaling, Jack fired twice.

The first shot took down the man who’d thrown the explosive and hit Mac with the rock. The second cut through the other two men who’d come out brandishing service pistols in Mac’s face. When all three men were lying in crumpled heaps around him, Mac looked up toward Jack’s window. His mouth was bleeding, but his hand was steady when he gave Jack a thumbs-up.

The whole thing had taken less than five minutes, but to Jack it felt like he’d lived three lifetimes.

He waited until the kid got to his feet and went back down the dust-covered alley to grab his ruck, then head toward the house where Jack was positioned before he left his spot near the window. As they met up in the doorway, Jack scanned the kid’s dusty face, reaching out to tip his chin sideways and examine the split lip and bruised jaw.

“You should see the other guy,” Mac quipped as Jack frowned. His voice had a forced lightness to it; Jack could see the shadows in the kid’s eyes.

“They did not want you to get out of that alley,” Jack stated. “No matter how they were dressed, they were the enemy the minute they put a gun on you.”

Mac nodded, pulling his chin from Jack’s grip and reaching for the Oakley’s hanging around his neck. “We gotta get back to the security team.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jack sighed, sliding his own eye protection in place. “I’ll call this in. See if there’s something in your IFAK for that lip.”

“I’ll be okay,” Mac argued, shrugging his arms through the straps of his ruck sack. “Let’s just go.”

Jack nodded, slinging the strap of his AR-50 over his shoulder. “You know, you’re carrying a pistol—”

“We’ve talked about this,” Mac practically growled, and Jack was once more struck by the weight of a voice that heavy in one so young.

“Yeah, we have,” Jack agreed, falling into step next to his Tech as they made their way back to their abandoned vehicle. “Don’t mean I understand it. You got through basic with a weapon, why not use one now?”

The kid sighed, reaching up to unbuckle the chin strap of his helmet. He paused just before pulling the protective gear off, knowing as well as Jack that until they were back at base, there was no guarantee someone with a vantage point and a high-powered weapon couldn’t get off a lucky shot. He rubbed his bruised jaw gingerly as they rounded the corner where their Humvee was waiting, just south of their security detail.

“I didn’t have a choice in basic,” Mac replied. “You know that.”

Jack climbed behind the wheel of the Humvee, shoving his ruck to the back next to Mac’s and situating his rifle between their seats. “Don’t really see that you have a choice now.”

Mac grinned over at him and in that moment, he looked so damn young Jack wanted to pack him up and ship him back to high school. “Sure, I do,” he said. “That’s why you’re here.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Hey, strap up. You know better than to John Wayne when we’re outside the wire.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mac sighed, but simply continued to rub at his bruised jaw.

Sighing, Jack started up the vehicle and reached for his radio. “Bulldog 6-5, this is Rickshaw 4-2,” he said, pulling forward and back on their route. “EOD cleared three streets on route, ready for the fourth, over.”

 _“Roger that, Rickshaw,”_ came the reply. _“Ordnance?”_

“Three disarmed,” Jack replied in the mic, then glanced over at Mac. “One per street…not great odds, you ask me.”

Mac’s eyebrows bounced up and he turned to look out through the side window.

_“Heard a ruckus.”_

“Ran into resistance,” Jack continued into the mic. “Three insurgents down.”

_“Casualties?”_

“Not on our side,” Jack replied.

_“Copy.”_

After confirming their security detail would split up—one going to handle any necessary clean up from the confrontation, the other covering the route—Jack slung the radio back in its holster and reached for their map, glancing at the streets Mac had crossed off and the route they were ordered to follow. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Mac shifting so that he could scan the road in front of the vehicle.

The kid’s eyes never stopped moving, Jack knew. Even back at base, in the safety of their barracks, he scanned the corners, the bunks, the chairs, the rafters just walking into a room.

A plastic bag or piece of loose trash on the side of the road would have the kid’s head snapping around so fast Jack was sure he heard vertebrae pop. Every box was suspect. Any open doorway eyed with caution. Every time they went out on patrol, the kid was wound tighter than the fuses he was so good at rendering harmless.

Jack had seen a lot in his lifetime, as a soldier, in the CIA, but it wasn’t until JSOC assigned him to Combat Support, EOD Overwatch that he truly recognized what it meant to live on a constant edge between life and death. Most of the EOD Specialists Jack had met were at least four or five years older than Specialist Angus MacGyver, the skinny kid with the funny name. But none of them—at least in Jack’s estimation—matched the sheer determination and focus he’d witnessed in this kid since he’d first been assigned as his Overwatch.

“I need to get Hawking fixed,” Mac said suddenly, startling Jack out of his musing.

Jack grinned. It was rare to see an EOD Tech without their Remote-Controlled Vehicles—or ‘wheelbarrow’—following them around like a metal puppy.  Mac’s RCV had malfunctioned the day before yesterday and the kid had spent most of the night taking it apart to find the cause.

“You give that thing a voice and I’m outta here,” Jack teased. “Skynet becoming self-aware is not a reality I’m cool with.”

Mac rolled his eyes. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about, John Connor,” he said, eyes skimming an intersection as Jack paused, waiting for his nod before crossing.

_“Rickshaw 4-2, copy.”_

“Rickshaw here, Bulldog,” Jack replied into the radio.

_“Covering the East route.”_

“Roger, we got South.”

Jack turned followed the route on the map.

“Besides,” Mac continued without missing a beat. “Hawking already has a voice.”

“Not one anybody but you can understand,” Jack replied.

The Techs became rather attached to their RCVs—since whenever possible, they attempted to disarm an ordnance remotely—but most he’d met had named them after dogs. Mac’s friend Charlie had an RCV named Scooby, which Jack could appreciate. But Mac had to be different, naming his after Stephen Hawking in a nod to the renowned scientist’s ability to overcome adversity—or so Mac explained.

“Jack, stop,” Mac said, his deep voice crisp and authoritative.

Jack obeyed immediately, eyes scanning the road, trying to see what Mac saw. He swore the kid had some kind of special, infra-red, bomb vision. He’d found IEDs in places Jack wouldn’t have even thought to look. And the Taliban used _anything_ to hide them in; they once found one in the body of a dead dog.

Mac didn’t even try to diffuse that one. He simply contained and destroyed. It had taken Jack a week to get the smell of burning hair out of his nose. And Mac didn’t sleep for more than two hours at a time for the next four days.

“Feel a tremor in the Force?” Jack asked when Mac hadn’t said anything in nearly a minute.

Mac tipped his chin forward, the loose straps from his helmet clicking against his IOTV. “You see that?”

Jack wanted to laugh. “I see a dirt road, two bombed-out cars, and a shit-ton of laundry hanging from all these windows.”

Several yards beyond the road where they were paused was a busy street with throngs of people and cars pelting every direction. Yet…none of them were coming down this road. It was practically deserted, which was enough to raise the hairs on the back of Jack’s neck.

One thing he’d noticed when they were ordered to relocate to Kandahar: there wasn’t a single stop light. Navigating basic city traffic was almost as dangerous as disarming an IED. And if this street was being avoided, there was a reason. One he wasn’t going to like.

“That bag over there,” Mac clarified, pointing just to the West of where they’d stopped.

“You want to check it out?” Jack asked, already knowing the answer.

Mac rolled his bottom lip against his teeth, his tongue darting out to dab at the cut, and nodded.

“Copy that,” Jack sighed, shutting down the engine. “Let me find a way to the roof—”

Before he was able to finish that thought, four men carrying what appeared to be Soviet Bizon submachine guns stepped out from one of the opened doorways. They saw the Humvee and stopped, rotating their weapons to train the barrels on the windshield. Jack reached for his rifle and Mac immediately snapped his chin strap into place.

“When I tell you,” Jack said in a low voice, “you get down and stay down.”

“What are you—”

Jack shot him a look. “You hear me, Specialist?”

Mac nodded quickly, blue eyes wide. But not scared, Jack registered. He might be young, but this kid was one of the bravest people Jack had ever met.

Jack pulled his rifle forward across his lap and rolled down the window. “Let us pass,” he shouted in Farsi.

One of the men shouted something back. Jack frowned, glancing over at Mac. “Is that Pashto?” he wondered.

Mac nodded. “They know what you’re saying, though,” he observed. “Look.”

The men had leveled the weapons at their hips, mobster-style, and were advancing on the vehicle.

Jack tried again, still in Farsi. “Let us pass; we mean no harm.”

The men didn’t reply, just continued to slowly advance.

“Jack,” Mac warned. “Back up.”

Jack started the vehicle, darting a questioning look over at Mac. The young Tech nodded toward where he’d been looking earlier. The men were drawing abreast of the bag that had given Mac a bad feeling, and if Mac was right, they didn’t want to be caught in the blast radius.

Jack began to reverse.

One man brought up his weapon and fired a spray of bullets across the windshield. Jack gasped and ducked, reaching out instinctively to grab Mac’s arm and pull the kid down with him. The bullets spider-webbed the glass, but Jack kept backing up. Another spray of bullets hammered the grill and Jack swore as steam spewed from the front of the engine.

Mac darted a look over the dash and his eyes grew wide. “Jack, floor it!”

Without bothering to ask why, Jack obeyed, eyes on the side mirror, hoping he didn’t smash someone in the process. Ten seconds later, the Humvee was rocked as the men who’d been advancing on their vehicle hit the IED. Bits of metal and pieces of marble peppered their vehicle as the antipersonnel device exploded.

Their radio erupted with demands for a sitrep from their security detail.

Jack continued backwards for a few more feet before coming to a stop, one wheel bumped up on a sidewalk. Adrenalin surged through him, making him breathless. He kept his head down for a few more beats, then straightened up to peer through the cracked windshield.

Their Humvee was trashed, but miraculously still running. The men were lying scattered in various places up the street—dead or wounded—and the building the IED had been closest to was missing a huge chunk of its wall, an empty room now exposed.

“You okay?” Mac asked, his voice trembling slightly.

Jack looked over and saw the kid was pale under the layer of dirt coating his face.

“I’m good. You okay?”

Mac nodded, straightening up the rest of the way. They’d backed up to a sidewalk scattered with vendors and merchants, their Humvee dislodging one rather ramshackle kiosk from its perch. Jack registered a delayed reaction to the explosion. People had screamed and startled, moving away from the empty road and the military vehicle, but then seemed to settle back into a semi-normal, flowing around the vehicle like a river of humanity.

Jack grabbed the radio and informed Bulldog 6-5 that they were intact, and an IED had taken out four insurgents. He glanced over at Mac when the lead for the detail informed them they were headed back their way.

“How many more roads on our route?”

Jack cleared his throat, grabbing for their map. “Supposed to be four.”

Mac exhaled slowly. “Okay.”

The hiss of their engine caught Jack’s attention. “Not sure this baby’s gonna hold together for that long, though.”

“Return to base?” Mac asked. “Get a new ride?”

Jack nodded. “Bulldog, this is Rickshaw 4-2.”

_“Copy you, Rickshaw.”_

“Vehicle is compromised,” Jack said, eyeing the bodies, “need to RTB.”

_“Are you good to get back?”_

Jack glanced at Mac who nodded, reaching for his door.

“Yeah, my EOD Tech is going to keep it together until we get back.”

 _“Your_ Tech _is going to…,”_ the voice cut off, then clicked back. “ _Uh, yeah. Roger that, Rickshaw. Tell MacGyver not to use chewing gum this time. Took the Base mechanics forever to get it off the engine block.”_

Jack chuckled as Mac lifted the engine hood. Clearly, Mac’s reputation was preceding him.

“Copy that.” Jack slung the radio into his holster then got out to join Mac at the engine.

“Need to take the hood off,” Mac said, moving around to the side. “Keep it from overheating.”

“Whatever you say, bud,” Jack shrugged, paralleling Mac and helping him pull the pins that held the engine hood fast.

They lifted the metal off and set it against the nearest building. The smell of the too-hot engine had Jack wrinkling his nose. A couple of merchants shouted at them in Farsi and Jack half-heartedly apologized. When the locals pressed forward once more, Jack pulled his side arm, holding it at the ready. The men backed off but continued to shout in his general direction.

Mac pulled off his Oakley’s, letting them rest at the base of his neck, and climbed up on the Humvee’s bumper, leaning into the engine. Jack glanced over but couldn’t figure out what the kid was doing. Especially when he pulled out the little red knife of his.

“You know what you’re doing?”

“Yeah,” Mac grunted, lifting himself briefly to remove his helmet, then burying his head once more. “The bullets took out one of the pistons, so I just have to rig up something to keep the oil from the crankcase out of the combustion chamber—”

“Yeah, yeah, okay, I get it, Mr. Popular Mechanic,” Jack broke in. “Let’s just get this done and get out of here.”

“Almost…got it,” Mac’s voice was strained from his position. After another minute, he leveraged himself upright and hopped down from the bumper, grabbing his helmet in the process. He slid his Oakley’s into place. “Ready?”

“Waitin’ on you, bud. Mount up,” Jack returned, holstering his pistol and climbing back behind the wheel. “We’ll get back to base and get another team ready to head out.”

Mac frowned, climbing into the Humvee next to Jack, and pulling his eye pro down again. The damn kid couldn’t keep one piece of gear in place for five minutes.

“I’ve got four more streets to clear you said.”

“Kid,” Jack took a left turn, trying not to over rev the engine. “You disarmed three ordnance, fought off three insurgents, and just about got your head blown off today. And it’s only,” Jack tipped his wrist, looking at the face of his watch, “1300.”

“I don’t do it, someone else has to,” Mac argued. “And what if they don’t make it? Then it’s on me.”

Jack frowned. That was a helluva lot responsibility for those narrow shoulders to bear. “It’s not on you,” he argued.

“It is,” Mac replied. “This is why I’m here, Jack. To keep people alive.”

Jack let those words sink in for a minute. He meant what he’d said earlier; he didn’t understand Mac’s resistance to use a weapon. He knew the kid could fire a gun—and based on his eyesight and steady hand, he was probably a decent shot. He wasn’t afraid, that much was plain. And he didn’t stop Jack and others from using their weapons; he wasn’t reluctant to kill if it meant saving a life, even his own.

But he wasn’t there to kill the enemy. He was there to keep people alive.

“Alright, kid,” Jack acquiesced. “We’ll do it your way.”

It should have rattled him; how easy it was to trust this kid. He was easily twice Mac’s age, had been fighting in battles when Mac was blowing up his first chemistry set. And yet at some point along the way, his faith in the skinny bomb tech had become absolute. There was no question he’d go to the mattresses for Mac.

He glanced over when he saw Mac reach up to rub at his sweaty face before sliding his Oakley’s back into place. For a moment he wondered what it was going to be like for this kid to return to his life back in California in a little over a month. How would he tell his LA friends about the streets of Kandahar? How would he explain Kabul and the desert and the way the sand got into everything? How would he tell them how weather in the space of one day could go from hellish heat to arctic chill?

How was he going to explain finding bombs in the bodies of dead dogs and seeing the pink mist that coats everything when an IED goes off at the wrong time? How was he going to look at their smiles and not see the grins of the men in his barracks? How was he going to drive down the road in his neighborhood and not see every piece of litter, every bit of roadside trash as a possible ordnance?

Jack sighed. He wasn’t, it was just that simple. Jack had been back from more tours than he could count on one hand, and every time it was different.

Every time he tried to explain and every time he failed. Every time they tried to understand and every time they fell short. It simply wasn’t possible to connect with life the same way after something like this, no matter how much those back home loved him.

Someone who just visits the zoo has no idea how the tiger lives.

The Humvee bucked slightly, and Jack blinked, bringing himself back to the present. They’d maneuvered to a side street, much less traveled than the main thoroughfare, but still congested with people, burned-out cars, and many, many stray dogs. Mac’s temporary fix had loosened, steam once more emanating from the engine and partially blocking Jack’s view.

“Dammit,” Jack growled, slowing down.

“No, wait,” Mac put a hand out. “You stop and I won’t be able to see the leak.”

Jack frowned over at the blond. “You want ride home on the engine block?”

“Not exactly,” Mac shook his head, setting his helmet aside and pulling his IOTV and IFAK clear.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jack exclaimed as Mac slimmed down to just his fatigues, all his protective gear removed.

Without answering, Mac shifted so that that upper half of his body was sticking out through the opened Humvee window, his arms around the front of the windshield, fingers reaching for the leaking engine.

“Son of a….” Jack thrust his arm out and grabbed the back of Mac’s belt, anchoring the kid in place.

He couldn’t see what Mac was doing, but whatever it was, the steam stopped and the engine quit seizing. After a few minutes, he felt Mac start to shimmy back and hauled the kid the rest of the way.

“Don’t you do that again, you hear me? Get your gear back on, right the hell now!”

Mac grinned at him, a disarming expression that just made Jack want to throttle him. “Okay,” he replied, tapping the air as though to calm Jack down. “But I fixed it, didn’t I?”

“I’ll fix _you_ , you ever pull that out-the-window stunt again,” Jack growled. He shook his head, unwilling to admit to himself how much it had scared him to see the kid’s complete lack of self-preservation in that moment. “And get your ACH on.”

“Yes sir, Sergeant, sir,” Mac teased, pulling his helmet on and buckling the chin straps.

A few beats of silence filled the interior of the cab.

“I wasn’t going to fall out,” Mac offered, his voice slightly contrite.

“Yeah?” Jack growled. “And how the hell’d you know that?”

Mac lifted a shoulder. “You wouldn’t have let me,” he said matter-of-factly, fastening his IFAK to the front of his gear.

Jack felt like someone had punching him in the solar plexus. For a moment, he couldn’t draw in a breath.

The complete trust he’d heard in Mac’s voice, a belief that nothing bad would happen to him as long as Jack was around, hit him like nothing else had in his past. Not surviving the impossible with his Task Force Green Delta unit. Not keeping men alive during his years as a sniper.

Not even burying his father.

He was Mac’s Overwatch, assigned to keep the kid alive so that he could disarm explosive ordnance. The very real possibility that he might be keeping Mac alive just to watch through his scope as he got blown up pressed on him every day like a lead weight.

It was just a job. Like any other.

Only it wasn’t. Not anymore.

Not from the moment his sixty-four days as MacGyver’s Overwatch were up and he didn’t get further than his Sergeant Major’s office before turning right back around. This was it, this kid.

He was Jack’s last assignment.

Jack pulled in a slow breath as they began to breach the cluster of bombed-out and run-down buildings for the road that led to their base. Afghanistan had been at war with someone since the 1970’s. While Kandahar was, essentially, a metropolis of vendors and merchants, there were whole sections of the city that would never recover from the carnage and warfare visited up on it. On one street, Jack saw businesses and places of worship, while just one street over, the shells of homes and hotels with burned-out shells of cars and bodies of animals littered the streets.

There was something in the air; like the weird force that surrounded a magnet or the pull right before he was shocked by static. Something was going to happen today, and Sergeant First Class Jack Dalton was certain he wasn’t going to like it.

 _“Rickshaw 4-2, you copy?”_ A different voice on the radio from their security detail, Bulldog 6-5, came through.

Jack glanced over at Mac and saw the same look of confusion on the kid’s face as he knew crossed his own. He picked up the radio.

“This is Rickshaw 4-2.”

_“Jack, what’s your location?”_

Jack frowned at the familiarity. It was his Sergeant Major Rob Temple, not their security detail or Mac’s EOD unit leader. “Just about to put Kandahar proper in our rear view and get this bucket of bolts back to Base.”

_“Need you to turn around.”_

Mac straightened up in his seat and Jack eased his foot off the accelerator.

“What’s going on, Robbie?”

 _“We got four men pinned down south of the market, near the hotel that was bombed last month,”_ Robbie replied. _“We can’t get to them; we need them to get to us.”_

Jack looked over at Mac and echoed the kid’s worried frown. He was already making a U-turn as he as clicked the radio.

“Why can’t you get there?”

_“They’re surrounded by a group of insurgents who just took down one of our Black Hawks.”_

Jack swallowed. They must have missed the Black Hawk crash when the IED blew. “Survivors?”

_“Negative.”_

“Damn,” Mac breathed, and Jack glanced at him, seeing the kid’s clenched fist against the door panel.

“What do you need us to do?”

 _“Need you to get to them, assess the situation, re-establish contact, and get them to new coordinates,”_ Robbie replied. _“We’ll get you all out from there.”_

“They lost their radio?”

_“Radio and radio operator.”_

“This just gets better and better,” Jack muttered before clicking his radio again. “Anyone else in the area?”

 _“There’s something else,”_ Robbie replied.

“There usually is,” Jack said, waiting for his Sergeant Major to continue.

 _“Before their radio cut out, we got a broken-up report of an unexploded ordnance, but it’s unclear where or what kind,”_ Robbie continued. _“Specialist MacGyver is the closest EOD Tech available to determine what we’re dealing with.”_

Jack glanced at Mac and saw the kid was already pulling his EOD pack out, checking each item.

“Good copy,” Jack replied. “Send coordinates.”

Jack navigated the insanity of the Kandahar traffic, radioing an update to their security detail and advising them to return to base.

 _“You good to go with a busted rig, Rickshaw?”_ came the response.

“Charlie Mike,” Jack sighed. Continue mission, even when the mission changed. Or their ride was ventilated. Or they had seven broken limbs. Welcome to this man’s Army.

Mac held the map so Jack could see it, pointing out the location several klicks to their South. As soon as Jack noted the location, he looked up, seeing a thinning plume of black smoke above the lower rooftops. The Black Hawk.

“We have to ditch the Humvee,” Jack said.

“Copy,” Mac replied, his voice tight and thin with focused anxiety.

Jack got as close as he dared to the coordinates, then turned down a nearly-empty, narrow alley. There wasn’t enough room to open their doors on either side, so they shifted until their boots were flat against the spider-webbed windshield and kicked the glass free. Mac climbed out first, reaching back for his ruck sack, his EOD pack, and the radio.

He set each on the over-heated engine block, waiting for Jack to hand out his ruck, the extra IFAK—two first aid kits were enough for them, but they had no idea what condition the four men were in—his AR-50, and extra camelback of water. When Jack climbed out, Mac hopped down off the engine and began to gear up, his ruck and EOD pack adding bulk to his thin frame.

Jack shouldered his rifle and checked to make sure he had both of his service pistols, leaving nothing behind in the Humvee that could later be used against an American soldier.

“You ready, bud?”

Mac nodded, a determined look at home on his young face.

“We don’t know what we’re walking into,” Jack told him. “We don’t know how many bad guys there are, or how well they’re armed.”

Mac nodded again, eyes on Jack, taking in every word.

“We _do_ know they’re pretty damn determined if they took down a Black Hawk,” Jack continued. “Gotta assume at minimum they have RPGs available—and therefore the geographical and tactical advantage.” He dragged his hand down his face. “And for whatever reason, they picked this hill to die on, so here’s what we’re going to do.”

He lowered his chin, eyes on Mac, trying to ignore how freaking _young_ the kid looked right now.

“We’re going in like it’s the trench run, you get me?”

At that, Mac tilted his head. “Not…exactly.”

“When we get close, you head straight for our boys, do not stop, stay on target,” Jack flattened his hands together, palm to palm, and pushed them forward.

“What about you?”

“I’ll be keeping Darth Vader off your six,” Jack grinned.

Mac arched a brow. “Maybe you should have just let Casey Riggs win the Halloween costume that year,” he teased.

Good. If the kid was being a smart ass, he wasn’t so focused on what they were about to do to be terrified.

“I got you, brother,” Jack told him, eyes level and serious.

Mac met his gaze and nodded stiffly, swallowing his nerves. Jack held out a fist and Mac automatically bounced his against it, as if this was just one more day, one more job.

“I got you,” Jack repeated quietly, and they headed down the side street toward the bombed-out, abandoned hotel, the afternoon sun warming their backs.

* * *

 **The Kitchen, Downtown Los Angeles**  
Present Day  
2345 hrs  
_Matty_

The small room had grown dark as Jack told his story.

At some point, someone had dug out several of the tabletop tea light candles from the storage bin beneath Kira and set them around the room, using DeAngelo’s cigarette lighter to light them. The warm glow of the candles seemed to offset the gritty reality of their predicament.

Jack’s voice had an almost hypnotic quality. So much so, Matty didn’t realize what she was feeling immediately until Riley’s hand gripped her arm.

This time the aftershock was much stronger, sending those still standing to their knees. Plates and glasses collected for food and water supplies rattled off the tops of tables, and the surviving patrons cried out in fear as parts of the broken walls started to fall inward.

“Get under the tables,” Flynn shouted, pulling people away from the crumbling walls.

Riley pulled Matty with her to the nearest table and they joined the elderly couple seeking cover until the tremors stopped. Breathing hard, Matty stalled the elderly gentleman for a moment, waiting to see if it was truly over, before allowing him to assist his wife back out from underneath the table.

Most of the tea light candles had been extinguished, but there was a blue-ish glow to the room that indicated light was coming in from somewhere. Matty crawled out from beneath the table and immediately looked toward the bench where she’d last seen Mac and Jack. They were in the same place, Jack covered with a fine layer of plaster dust, coughing a bit. Mac was still unconscious, his position against Jack slightly askew. Ben was standing next to them, looking around with a slightly stunned expression. They seemed intact, if a bit rattled.

“Look!” DeAngelo cried out suddenly. “It opened up a space in the walls!”

Matty looked toward what had been the front of the restaurant and saw that there was indeed a slim opening. Not one large enough to allow easy passage of a person, but it was clearly the source of the light. DeAngelo headed for the crack in the walls.

“I bet if we just push the rest of this—”

“Wait!” Called Riley, holding out a hand. “You can’t—they said it was too unstable!”

DeAngelo scoffed, moving forward and reaching for one of the cracked walls. “They can’t see from this angle, what do they know? I can just pull this part off and fit through.”

“Mr. DeAngelo, don’t,” Flynn called, moving away from where he’d been helping one of the older women to a more comfortable spot and heading after the determined business man. “You could bring it all down on our heads.”

“I doubt that,” DeAngelo grumbled, kicking the flat of his dress shoe against the cracked wall.

At first nothing happened, but then he kicked again and Matty heard a terrifying groan of metal and rock above their heads. Someone gasped and Leanna and Bozer pushed three people away from the proximity of the entrance. The wall gave way slightly, opening the crack a bit wider.

“It’s working!” DeAngelo cried, triumphant. “I told you—”

His celebration was short-lived.

One of the metal support beams that had originally run the length of the ceiling teetered and fell, crashing through the cracked wall and coming right for DeAngelo. Moving almost inhumanly fast, the young Marine who’d spoken up earlier darted forward, grabbing DeAngelo by the back of his expensive suit jacket and hauling him out of the way.

The beam crashed down, the resounding shockwave of noise causing Matty to cover her ears and many of the others to cry out in terror. When the noise finally dissipated, Matty looked up. The narrow crack had been filled by the metal beam; no light shone through. The flames from the remaining tea light candles danced in the ensuing rush of air but didn’t blow out.

“At least it’s not completely dark,” Bozer offered up from the shadows.

“You fuckin’ idiot,” the Marine growled, and Matty heard him shoving DeAngelo off him. “I swear if you get me killed, I’ll haunt your ass.”

Matty exhaled. At least the Marine was still alive.

“I was _trying_ to get us rescued,” DeAngelo grumbled. Matty could see him getting unsteadily to his feet and tugging his jacket into place as he limped toward the brighter candlelight. “How was I supposed to know that would happen?”

“Because she fucking told you,” Flynn snapped, gesturing toward where Riley stood, her hands on her slim hips, fire in her glare.

“Oh, and what is she? A structural engineer?”

“No,” Flynn stepped forward, his figure silhouetted against the candlelight. “She’s the one who has been talking to the rescue team—and _they’re_ the structural engineers.”

DeAngelo shook his head. “Listen, Kid Chef, I’ve had just about enough of your sanctimonious bullshit.”

Matty shook her head as Flynn squared his shoulders. She expected him to throw a punch and was surprised when instead his voice slipped out, low and dangerous, “Someday, I think you and I are going to have a serious disagreement.”

“Don’t wait, shithead,” DeAngelo snarled. “Let’s go!”

“Matty!” Jack’s voice cut into the brewing brawl and drew all eyes toward him. “We need some light over here,” Jack continued. “Now.”

“Cell phones,” Matty barked. “All of them. Get them out, now!”

Almost everyone pulled their phones from pockets and purses, turning on the flashlight feature and shining the light toward where Jack and Ben were bent over Mac. Matty waved a hand at Bozer and Leanna and they joined Riley in gathering up six phones, bringing the lights closer to the bench.

A sound of quiet misery was emanating from the figure on the bench. Jack had slid back until Mac was once more lying flat on his back, the leather jacket having been completely removed and set aside as Ben worked to unwind the saturated gauze wrap from around Mac’s shoulder and arm. Matty could see that Mac was visibly shaking—she didn’t think it was another seizure, but he was no longer lying lax against Jack as he’d been for the hour prior while Jack had been talking.

“What happened?” she asked, stepping closer to Jack.

“The aftershock knocked some debris onto his chest before we could shield him,” Jack reported. “I didn’t think it hit him too hard, but he just started…started shaking, and I—”

Mac coughed, a wet rattling sound that ended in a choked-off gasp.

“Roll him,” Ben ordered. “To his side, now. Roll him.”

Jack eased Mac to his side, keeping him off his wounded right arm by bracing him across the chest and cradling his head. Mac coughed again, and Ben thumped the heel of his hand against Mac’s lower back, as though shocking his diaphragm into working once more. Matty pressed her lips tight in dismay as Mac gagged, bright red blood on his lips.

“Oh, Mac,” Riley breathed, covering her mouth.

“I need a stethoscope,” Ben practically growled.

Bozer ran to the first aid kit and rifled through it. “There’s nothing…. There’s _nothing_ like that in here.”

As Mac gasped, his breath rattling roughly in his chest. “J-Jack.”

Matty blinked, shocked to hear the young agent’s voice.

“Right here, bud,” Jack replied immediately, pulling Mac up against him. The still-bleeding wounds on Mac’s arm and shoulder smeared a garish red across Jack’s shirt and Matty heard someone behind her utter a cry of dismay. “I’m right here.”

“Wh-what…h-happened?”

“You got a little blown up,” Jack replied, his voice amazingly calm for all the anguish Matty could see in his expression. “We’re trying to keep you in one piece.”

“H-hurts…,” Mac gasped, finally blinking his eyes open a crack. Matty couldn’t see much more than the flutter of his eyelashes from where she stood.

“Yeah, I know, kid,” Jack cradled the back of Mac’s head. He looked up at Ben. “What do you need the stethoscope for?”

Ben dragged a hand down his face, his fingers stretching the scars on either side of his mouth into a garish grin. His eyes darted around at the cellphone lights currently illuminating the macabre scene.

“I cannot determine if he has internal bleeding from the,” he gestured to the center of his own chest, “the bruising here, or if his lungs are compromised.” He sighed. “Or both.”

“Would you be able to help him if you knew?” Matty asked.

Ben nodded. “Depending on what I heard, yes.”

“J-Jack….” Mac’s voice strained, his back arching slightly in helpless retaliation against the pain.

“Hey, kid, it’s okay,” Jack tightened his hold on Mac as the young agent tried to shift out of his hold. “I got you. It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

“Steth…stethoscope….”

Jack shot his eyes over to Matty, then looked back down at Mac’s bandaged face. “You know how to build a stethoscope?”

Mac swallowed convulsively and for one agonizing moment Matty thought he was going to be sick, but he managed to pull in a shallow breath. “Balloon…f-funnel…t-tubing….”

“Oh, shit, yeah,” Bozer suddenly spoke up. “I saw him do this once for my dog—when we were kids! I remember because he tore up my Super-Soaker to get the tubing.”

“You know what he needs?” Matty asked, her sharp eyes on Bozer.

Bozer nodded, setting down the cell phone lights he’d been holding so that the beam shot straight up. “Yeah, I just don’t know where to find it.”

“I can help you there,” Flynn spoke up. “C’mon.”

The young chef crossed the room to grab Bozer by the arm and lead him into the darkened kitchen, using one of the cell phone lights as their guide. Ben was folding several napkins in what looked like a make-shift pressure dressing as Jack continued to murmur to Mac in a low voice. She couldn’t tell if Mac were still conscious; he seemed to be pressing back against Jack’s chest with each breath.

The squelch of the radio clipped to the belt on Riley’s dress startled them all.

 _“This is L.A. County Fire Department,”_ a female, static-filled voice came over the radio. _“I need to speak to Riley Davis.”_

Riley handed Jack one of her cell phone lights and grabbed the radio from her belt, moving closer to the newly collapsed wall to increase the signal strength.

“This is Riley Davis,” she replied. “How close are you guys to getting us out of here?”

_“We may have a solution, but we need to bring equipment down through rubble. It will take about an hour to get here.”_

Riley shot a desperate look toward Mac. “Can you send more medical supplies?”

_“What’s the status there?”_

“We’re trapped, lady,” DeAngelo growled before Riley could depress the button. “What do you _think_ our status is?”

“We have some anxious people,” Riley replied, completely ignoring DeAngelo, “but except for one, everyone is intact. We could use some food and water, though.”

_“What about the injured man?”_

Riley looked at Ben.

“He needs pressure bandages, pain medication—morphine, preferably—and oxygen,” Ben replied, laying the folded napkins against Mac’s shoulder and arm before beginning to re-wrap them with gauze.

Riley repeated what he told her.

“And more saline,” Ben added.

“What about something for his fever?” Matty interjected.

Ben shook his head, frustration in his tone. “Without knowing what is damaged inside, I do not know which antibiotics to ask for. I have improvised so much already; I am afraid of causing more damage.”

 _“Is there a Matty Webber in there with you?”_ the woman asked.

Matty looked up and headed over to Riley, taking the walkie-talkie from her outstretched hand.

“This is Matty Webber,” she said.

 _“Ms. Webber, I have a message from someone named James MacGyver,”_ the woman informed her. _“He said to tell you he is working on it.”_

Matty narrowed her eyes, not allowing herself to look over at Jack or Mac. “Thank you,” she replied. “If you get the opportunity, please tell him that he’d better work faster if he wants that chance he was asking for.”

 _“Yes, ma’am,”_ the woman replied. _“Supplies are on the way.”_

“Ben,” Flynn called as he and Bozer exited the kitchen. “Can you make this work?”

Matty handed the radio back to Riley before joining the group over on the bench were Mac lay. She winced, seeing that Mac was indeed awake, but she couldn’t tell if he knew what was going on. His right hand shook uncontrollably, the latest bandage on his shoulder already starting to turn red in places. His pupils were blown so wide, there was barely any blue visible. Mac was seeing a whole lot of nothing; despite that, his eyes skimmed the room, searching for something in the harsh light from the cell phone flashlights, and his chin and lips trembled as he fought for breath.

She stepped closer, needing to help. Needing to _fix this_. Unable to do either.

Ben took the materials from Flynn and Matty saw two different sized funnels, both smaller than Ben’s palm, a handful of rubber balloons, a clear tube that looked like it had once been part of some plumbing, and a roll of painter’s tape. The former Medic seemed at a loss.

“I am not…I don’t…,” Ben shook his head.

“I got you,” Bozer stepped through the ruined doorway, a pair of kitchen shears in his hand. “You don’t spend as much time as I do with a guy like Mac without picking up a thing or two.”

Bozer picked up one of the balloons and cut the end off, then began to fit the larger portion over the wide end of one of the funnels.

“I see what you’re doing,” Flynn chimed in, picking up the other funnel and matching Bozer’s work. “I knew having these balloons on hand for birthday celebrations was a good idea.”

A scoff sounded from behind Matty and she half-turned to see DeAngelo shrugging out of his suit jacket, shaking his head.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” he muttered loud enough for the room to hear. He dropped the suit jacket across the back of one of the chairs, wiping sweat from his balding scalp with a napkin. “Kid’s half-dead and you expect me to believe he’s with it enough to help you build a goddamn stethoscope?”

“I don’t think anyone in this room cares what you believe, Mr. DeAngelo,” Matty stated, her voice brittle.

DeAngelo looked at her, surprised, then shook his head again and leaned against a nearby wall.

“Jack….” Mac’s voice cut through the tense room, bringing both Bozer and Flynn’s eyes up. His eyes were hooded, his forehead turned to press slightly against Jack’s throat. “Some…something’s…wrong.”

“You just keep breathin’, kid,” Jack told him softly. “That’s all you gotta worry about.”

“’m…h-hurting,” Mac confessed, his eyes rolling closed before he forced them open again as though afraid of falling asleep, his pale features tight with pain.

Matty couldn’t pull her gaze away from his right hand; it shook even as his arm rested across his belly. She couldn’t imagine the pain that was causing such a motion.

“I know,” Jack held Mac close, one hand carefully carding through his hair, above the bandage. “But you hang in there, okay? You stay with me, now.”

Mac swallowed, eyes slipping closed once more. “’m tired…tired of…h-hurting.”

Bozer froze in his motion of taping the balloon in place and Matty almost called out to him to keep going when he went to his knees next to the bench. Handing Ben his assembled funnel, he took Mac’s trembling hand in his, closing his fingers around Mac’s.

“Hey, Mac,” Bozer said softly. “I know you’re tired, man. But you gotta stick with us, okay?”

“Wh-why?” Mac asked, blinking half-lidded eyes open to look vaguely in Bozer’s direction.

He seemed genuinely confused, uncertain as to why he was being asked to continue his suffering. Jack made a sound somewhere between a sob and a gasp. Matty stepped closer to Bozer and felt Riley close in at her back.

“Because, we need you,” Matty told him, trying vainly to ignore the way his chin trembled, a tear leaking out of the corner of his eyes. “I know you feel like you’re drowning right now, Mac, but…your life is about so much more than pain.”

Flynn reached over Matty’s head and handed Ben the assembled stethoscope. Matty saw that it was going to be tricky—each end had a balloon stretched over the mouth of the funnel, taped in place, and connected by the tubing. But if he could make it work—if he could help Mac—she didn’t care how tricky it was.

“Jack…,” Mac groaned, his eyes closing as his neck arched back, pressing his head against Jack’s shoulder.

Bozer released Mac’s hand and stood up, taking a few steps back, his breath hitching as he fought to keep his emotions in check. Matty sympathized; the only reason she hadn’t let the tears that burned the backs of her eyes fall was the knowledge that she had to stay strong for her team. They took their cues from her; if she faltered, so would they.

And her team simply did not falter. They never had, not once. She was damn well not going to be the first.

“I’m right here, kid,” Jack said, tears choking his voice. “I’m not going to leave you.”

“M’head,” Mac panted, “…heads…k-killin’ me. Hurts…to think.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Jack swallowed, his hand bracing Mac’s head near the bandage. “Don’t suppose it’d do any good to tell you to stop thinking.”

“Hold him still, if you would,” Ben said, moving into position so that he could lean over Mac’s bared chest. “I need it quiet, please.”

He rested the larger of the two funnels against Mac’s skin just below the spectacular bruising and pressed the other end to his ear. It took him a moment to get the right angle as Mac’s rapid, ragged breaths sent his chest stuttering up and down at irregular intervals.

“Oh, come on!” DeAngelo almost laughed. “There is no way that’s going to work.”

Matty turned to glare at him, seeing that several of the other people in the room had similar looks of disgust on their faces. Before she could do anything, Bozer crossed the room in three long strides, slapped his hand over DeAngelo’s mouth, and shoved the other man against the wall.

“The man said he needs it _quiet_ ,” Bozer growled.

Matty felt her shoulders pull up square at Bozer’s action and she allowed herself a small smile before turning back to see what Ben was doing. He’d motioned for Jack to hold the funnel against Mac’s chest and pressed his other hand flat against his open ear, blocking out sound.

Mac lay propped against Jack’s chest, his head back on Jack’s shoulder, breath rasping through trembling lips. Matty couldn’t tell if he knew what was happening, or if he was just trying desperately not to shake apart from the pain, but he didn’t move.

After several minutes, Ben straightened up, setting the make-shift stethoscope aside. The room seemed to collectively exhale at this motion and Bozer released DeAngelo from the wall.

“I cannot hear fluid in his lungs, which is good,” Ben told them. “But the bruising is extensive, and the fact that he is coughing up blood is worrisome.”

“What should we do?” Jack asked.

“Keep him warm, keep him calm,” Ben said, rubbing the top of his shaved head. “Pray.”

_“Riley Davis, copy?”_

They all jumped at the unexpected sound. Riley unhooked the walkie-talkie from her dress belt and pressed the button.

“I’m here.”

_“We have the supplies—same place?”_

“Yes! Thank you,” Riley replied, then looked over at Bozer. “C’mon.”

This time, Bozer grabbed DeAngelo’s arm and hauled him along grumbling, “…damn well gonna help do _something_ good around here, I know that much.”

“You with me, kid?” Jack was whispering, his face close to Mac’s. “Need you to stay with me, Mac, you hear me?”

“Mmm,” Mac groaned in response.

“You don’t have to think, you don’t have to solve any problems, you don’t have to fix anything. You don’t have to do anything but lie here and breathe,” Jack told him. “I know you can do that.”

“Jack…,” Mac gasped, and Matty saw another tear chase the first down the same path on his blood-stained face. “Can’t… _nnnrrrghhh_ ….,” he arched his neck back again, causing Jack to shift his hold so that he didn’t press against any of Mac’s wounds. “Can’t….”

“Yes, you can,” Jack told him, though Matty wasn’t sure if either of them knew what Mac was referring to. “You _can_. You are the goddamn bravest person I have ever met in my life.”

Mac turned his head weakly, his lips trembling and Matty couldn’t tell in the eerie cell phone lighting if she was seeing blood staining them from earlier, or if they were tinged slightly blue. She saw him force his eyes open and, in that split second, she realized he was scared.

The kid who had found a way to survive without the safety net of loving parents, who had pushed himself every day to make his way in the world, who had willingly put himself between death and someone else on countless occasions, was terrified.

Matty found herself at a loss. She always had an answer, an order, a plan. Yet in this moment, the look in his eyes set her back on her heels.

“T-trying,” he panted, his body shuddering slightly.

Something seemed to click inside Jack and he straightened his back, shifting his position so that he still held Mac but at an angle so the he could better look the younger man in the eye. Mac groaned at the movement, but Jack didn’t let that deter him. He slid his arm from behind Mac’s shoulders and rested both hands on either side of Mac’s neck, his thumbs against Mac’s cheekbones.

“Dammit, kid,” he almost barked, bringing several eyes his direction, “you’re _not_ giving up. You get that? I won’t let you.”

Mac blinked sluggishly at him, eyes clouded with pain and an almost hesitant fear—as though he knew he should be afraid, but he couldn’t remember of what anymore. “C-Cairo.”

Matty frowned, thinking Mac was disconnecting from time again, when Jack suddenly nodded.

“That’s right, kid,” Jack said, sniffing as his tears slipped down his cheeks as he leaned forward and gently pressed his forehead against Mac’s. “I didn’t give up on you in Cairo; you’re not giving up on me now.”

“Flynn,” Bozer called and Matty looked around to where he, Riley, and DeAngelo came back carrying a large, plastic bucket between them. “Get this stuff, will ya?”

Flynn joined them and pulled out a box of energy bars and more bottles of water, working with DeAngelo to distribute them through to the survivors. Riley and Bozer filled their arms with the medical supplies and headed to Ben. Matty motioned Leanna over.

“Take this bucket and shove it as far back into that corner as you can,” she said, pointing to a point well away from where the crowd sat huddled. “Then find something to string up a couple of table cloths like a curtain.”

Leanna looked puzzled. “Matty, what—”

“It’s been several hours now,” Matty pointed out. “People are going to need bathroom breaks. And since we can’t get to the actual restrooms from here….”

Leanna grimaced. “Yeah. Didn’t think of that.”

“I’ll help you,” Riley offered, setting her supplies on the ground next to the bench. She picked up Ben’s discarded kitchen jacket where it had fallen to the floor when Jack collected Mac against him and pulled it around her shoulders. “Kinda need it myself.”

Turning back to Mac, Matty saw that Jack had turned once again so that he was holding Mac against him, his posture tight, his eyes watching every move Ben made with a hyper-vigilance that set Matty on edge.

Ben almost looked happy as he sorted the pile of supplies provided them. He handed Jack a packet of QuickClot and instructed Flynn to unwrap the pressure dressings. Using his teeth, he opened a packet of 10 milligram morphine syrettes. The small auto-injectors were common with soldiers, Matty knew, and Ben didn’t hesitate as he pressed the injector against Mac’s leg.

It took less than a minute to take effect; with a sound caught somewhere between a sob and a groan, Mac’s whole body seemed to melt against Jack. His hand still trembled, but his back and shoulders released the tension they’d been holding, his head sagging back onto Jack’s shoulder.

“Thank God,” Matty heard a voice from behind her whisper.

She glanced back when she realized it wasn’t DeAngelo who’d spoken. The young Marine stood holding one of the flats of water bottles, helping Flynn distribute the supplies, his eyes on Mac. Letting her gaze travel the rest of the small room, she saw relief on many faces, tears on others, and one person crossed herself as she breathed a prayer.

Ben had been right; pain was hard to witness, the sound of pain even more difficult to withstand. Except for one, this group of people had been silent supporters, doing their best to remain brave in a terrifying situation, letting the team focus on Mac. She looked at each face, memorizing them, knowing that no matter what happened after this moment, she would remember their relief at Mac’s reprieve from pain, even if just for a little while.

She looked back at her young agent. His blue eyes roamed the room lazily, as though trying ground himself on something familiar. She stepped close, taking his hand.

“You _will be_ okay, Blondie,” she ordered him, drawing his eyes to her. “You hear me?”

“Hear you,” Mac replied, blinking slow and sluggish.

“Good,” Matty nodded, her throat tight. “Because I didn’t refill that damn bowl of paperclips for nothing.”

“Use the QuickClot on the puncture wound,” Ben told Jack, then shifted his eyes to Flynn, “and then apply the pressure bandages to the shoulder and down the arm. We have to get that bleeding under control.”

Jack and Flynn moved in tandem. The minute the QuickClot hit the deep wound on Mac’s shoulder, the young agent let out a sharp cry, then clamped his jaw tight, huffing out strangled breaths in an attempt to get control.

“Easy, you’re okay,” Jack murmured.

It unnerved Matty to see Mac working so hard to gain control. She tightened her hold on his hand as Flynn pressed the bandages to the puncture wound. Mac made a noise somewhere between a sob and a growl, his teeth grinding. When the QuickClot hit the torn skin along his bicep, he gasped and went limp against Jack. Quickly, Matty slid her fingers to his wrist, feeling the too-rapid slam of his pulse, then nodded at Jack who was looking at her expectantly.

Flynn applied the pressure dressing on the rip in the skin along Mac’s bicep and together the men wrapped him from shoulder to elbow. For the first time since they’d started trying to mend that wound, the bandages did not immediately turn red. Breathing a sigh of relief, Ben handed Jack an oxygen mask attached to a small, portable tank.

“Keep that on him,” he instructed, turning the knob of the oxygen tank to release a stream of air. “And keep him as upright as possible without putting additional pressure on his chest.”

Jack nodded, easing the thin strap around behind Mac’s head, the mask clouding with Mac’s exhale.

“Glad he’s not awake for this,” Jack murmured.

Matty frowned. “Why’s that?”

Jack glanced over at her, something dark shifting across his eyes. “It was before you,” he said, drawing her frown deeper with his words. “Bad guy basically waterboarded him using Nitrogen.”

Realization dawned. “El Noche,” Matty recalled, ignoring the curious looks that were tossed her way by Flynn and others.

Jack nodded. “Took him a while to get over that, and…,” he shrugged slightly, shifting Mac’s head against his shoulder, “ever since then, he’s been a little, uh, claustrophobic when it comes to these things.” He tipped his chin toward the oxygen mask.

“He needs the oxygen,” Ben said quietly, pulling the table cloths back up to cover Mac’s bruised chest.

He registered Jack’s nod of acceptance, then reached up to change the now-empty bag of saline. Matty saw a slight tremor in his hand as he reattached the tubing to the new bag.

“Ben-Aryeh,” she said softly, turning from Mac to face the former Medic.

Ben flinched at the sound of his full name and turned to stare at her in surprise.

“However it is you ended up here, wherever you came from, I am so grateful to you,” she told him, smiling.

“I have not saved him yet,” Ben reminded her.

“You’re damn well on your way,” Jack spoke up. “Thanks, man. Seriously.”

Ben looked down and away, his face pulling tight with emotion. “He can have more morphine in six hours,” he said. “If we are still here.”

“If we’re still here in six hours, _I’m_ going to need that morphine,” DeAngelo grumbled.

Matty rolled her eyes, turning to Jack. The man was strung tight as a bow; Matty could practically see his radar on high-alert, sending out warnings to anyone or anything that attempted to come near that he was on guard.

No one was getting to his boy.

“You need to eat something,” she said.

“I’m fine,” he told her, his eyes on the tablecloth covering Mac to the shoulders.

Matty found Riley with her eyes, the glow of a dozen cell phone lights turning the room an odd pearled-blue, and tipped her head toward Jack. Riley grabbed an energy bar and a bottle of water and took them over to Jack. He didn’t move to take them from her.

“You have to keep up your strength, Jack,” Riley said softly. “We don’t know what we’re going to have to do when they try to move those walls. We need you to keep Mac with us.”

“I can feel him fading, Ri,” Jack said, tears in his voice. “Right here, right against me, and he’s fading away.”

Riley crouched down, the edge of the white coat brushing the floor, and rested her hand on Jack’s arm, looking him in the eye.

“He’s still here, Jack,” she told him.

“He’s just so…still,” Jack’s voice hitched. “He ain’t ever still. Always gotta be doin’ something. Like messin’ with those damn paperclips just to keep himself focused.” Jack drew in a slow breath, swallowing a knot of emotion. “Just don’t like seeing him so still.”

Matty felt her heart clench and found herself helplessly reaching up to press a hand against her chest. Jack was right: Mac was never still. Even when the solution required something as cerebral as math, he wrote on glass, on car hoods, or even in the air. Always in motion.

“He’s strong, Jack. He’s _so_ strong,” Riley’s voice faltered slightly, but she pushed on, “and that’s because of you. Because _you_ keep him going.”

Jack shook his head. “Nah, this kid…it’s always been him. He saved _me_. Kept me away from the edge. He’s always just…just figured out how to get through one day. Then the next. And the one after that.”

“Because he knows you’re there for him,” Riley insisted. “He knew he wasn’t going to fall out of that truck in Kandahar because you wouldn’t let him. He trusts you more than anyone in this world. He needs you to be here for him.”

Jack sniffed and dragged a hand down his face, attempting to banish his tears. “Damn kid,” he half-chuckled. “He’s done that out-the-window thing a few times, you know?”

“I do,” Riley allowed herself to smile. “Scares the crap out of me every time.”

“Doesn’t have one ounce of self-preservation,” Jack shook his head. “He ran into that burning kitchen without thinking about whether or not he’d be able to run back out. Just ‘cause there were people in trouble.”

“I was closest to the hole in the Earth,” Ben revealed quietly. “He had to lean over the edge to pull me to safety.”

Jack waved a hand in Ben’s direction as if to say, _see, there you go_.

“So, how about you eat something,” Riley lifted the energy bar and water. “Take care of yourself, so you can take care of him.”

Jack nodded, taking the proffered food and water with a soft smile at Riley. Flynn slid down to sit against the bench near Mac’s feet, his head canted back against the padded seat.

“You’re right about that whole…leap before looking, thing,” Flynn commented as Matty and Riley found chairs to sit in near Bozer and Leanna. “He did that in Afghanistan, too—at least the times I was around him.”

“Sounds like a bit of a hothead,” DeAngelo spoke up, but Matty detected a sliver of admiration in his tone this time.

“Nah, not really,” Jack shook his head. “He just thinks so much faster than the rest of us, he’s plotted out the solution in his head before his body can catch up. It looks like he’s reckless when really he’s scary calculated.”

“What happened when you guys reached those boys that were pinned down?” the young Marine spoke up from where the rest of the patrons had clustered together in the shadows of the cell phone lights.

Jack blinked, looking over at him in surprise. “You really want to hear the rest of that story?”

“Hell yeah, man,” the Marine replied. “Get my mind of these damn aftershocks and the idea that we’re sitting in the middle of a Jenga tower.”

“I hear that,” Bozer muttered in agreement.

Jack looked over at Flynn. “You okay with this?”

Flynn lifted a shoulder. “My old man told me one time that when we die, we turn into stories. And every time someone tells a story, we live on.” He tipped his hand to the side, curling the fingers into a fist of memory. “I’d like to see some of those guys again, y’know?”

Jack nodded, taking a drink of water. He looked down where Mac rested against his shoulder, lashes dusting his bruised face, the oxygen mask clouding at regular intervals.

“Well, Mac decided to go along with my crazy plan to approach the place like kamikazes,” Jack began, picking up where he left off, “although, looking back, I’d probably have definitely done it differently….”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N:** So, in my research for this story, I found I had to draw some educated guesses when it came to making the Afghanistan portions somewhat plausible. As I investigated the formations in Delta, I discovered that there was a Combat Support Squadron that oversees EOD. I also discovered that each troop has multiple teams, led by a non-commissioned officer (Master Sergeant or Sergeant Major) and the rest of the teams are filled out with operations ranging in rank from Sergeant to Master Sergeant…so, that’s how I settled on Jack’s rank because, to be honest, I wasn’t sure what his rank actually was.
> 
> Next, in trying to figure out a believable “call sign” for Mac and Jack, I found a table aligning appointments (artillery, infantry, etc.) with a title, and “Rickshaw” was assigned to Ordnance. Now, the security detail being “Bulldog”? That was a shout-out to **SarieVenea** , who so graciously helped me with the language for the 2011 flashback scenes (for example, I didn’t realize soldiers deployed in Afghanistan never said “sandbox” …they call it “downrange”). Thanks, girl. *virtual fist bump*


	4. Chapter 4

**Kandahar, Afghanistan**  
October, 2011  
1345-ish  
_Jack_

The coordinates they were given was a location a few miles outside of Kandahar’s city center. Structures were older, most houses were simply shells, and there were scarcely any merchants on the streets. Sand blew relentlessly without as many buildings to block it.

Jack squinted against the gritty onslaught, feeling it smack against his protective eyewear and gather at the edges of his mouth. He saw Mac reach up once or twice to wipe at the cut on his lip, the sand gathering there and irritating it back into bleeding. After a few attempts to block the sand, Mac just rolled his lip against his teeth, pulling the cut into his mouth as much as he could.

They heard shouting as they approached the buildings that surrounded the bombed-out hotel. The crowds dissipated the closer they got to the hotel until they were alone on the street. Jack scanned the rooftops as they pressed themselves as close to the wall of one house as they could get with their ruck sacks on their backs. He could see two men in overwatch position, and at least one RPG resting against the edge of the roof.

It was unclear how many were in the surrounding houses or hunkered down behind the abandoned vehicles that littered the road, but by the shouted taunts and insults, Jack counted at least six distinct voices, most of them calling out in Farsi, except—

“What’re you douchebags waitin’ for?”

The shout echoed across the empty street, bouncing off the concrete of the surrounding houses. The decidedly East-coast American accent made Jack smile.

“Ya motherfuckers gonna just pick us off one by one?”

The voice was coming from what was left of the parking structure of the hotel. From Jack’s vantage point, he could see several large chunks of cement and one large beam had fallen from the destroyed structure to create a sort of barrier around the soldiers. Jack could see three of the four soldiers were covering each side of the make-shift barricade, leaving the back of the barricade exposed to the empty parking structure.

He couldn’t see the fourth man.

Mac smacked Jack on the arm, drawing his attention. The kid had pulled his Oakley’s down around his throat again, protected from the sand by the proximity of the buildings. A paragraph of words was held in his blue eyes; the only problem was, Jack understood about half of them. Sighing, Mac rolled his bottom lip against his teeth, worrying the cut there, then leveled his eyes on Jack once more, pointing to a break between two burned-out cars that led straight to the parking structure.

Jack nodded, easing his AR-50 from his shoulder and pressing his hip against the side of the building.

“On three,” he breathed, Mac’s eyes on his lips. “One, two—”

Mac took off, his long legs eating up the distance between their cover and the parking structure. Jack saw one gun on the rooftop track him and he fired two rounds, toppling that man from the roof. Several weapons turned loose on the barricade and Jack cringed against the building, taking cover as the soldiers in the barricade fired back.

“Jack, _now_!” Mac shouted, and Jack ran.

He kept his head down and pumped his legs faster than he remembered running in years, sliding to a stop against one of the fallen cement pillars, and rolling beneath the sagging parking structure floor, rebar reaching anxious fingers to snag his ruck, his rifle, his helmet. He felt hands on him, pulling him forward and then he was behind the make-shift barricade and the gunfire ceased.

Wide, bright blue eyes were staring down at him, slim hands on either side of his face.

“Are you hit?” Mac asked frantically.

Jack did a mental check. He didn’t feel any pain. “I’m good,” he panted. “You?”

Mac simply nodded, helping Jack sit up. He looked around at the three soldiers staring back at him, their faces streaked with dirt and sweat, a mixture of fear, determination, and rage making them look older than he knew they had to be.

“Any you boys see an aircraft carrier around here?” Jack quipped, catching his breath as he pulled down his own eyewear.

A young soldier with blue eyes and close-cropped black hair looked at him, incredulous. “Dalton?”

Jack blinked. “Flynn?”

Specialist Henry Flynn crawled over from his cover point in their barricade, keeping his head low, and grabbed Jack’s hand in a greeting.

“What are you boys doing here?” Jack asked, craning his neck to look over the barricade. He couldn’t see anyone immediately, and they were tucked close enough to the parking structure they weren’t easy pickings for the rooftop shooters.

“We got cut off from our unit,” an African-American Private with a deep, rumbling voice explained. He looked to be in his mid-twenties—in fact, all three men appeared to be about four or five years older than Mac. “And then they took our radio operator.”

“Took him?” Mac bleated, nodding at Flynn. “Hey, Henry.”

“Mac,” Flynn greeted. “You guys our cavalry?”

“Looks like,” Mac replied, eyes skimming over the third man in their group.

Jack didn’t recognize anyone else besides Specialist Henry Flynn—and that was only because he’d been unofficially elected as the barracks cook back in Kabul. Pretty damn good cook, too. Someone who could somehow make Army grub tolerable was not someone Jack was likely to forget.

“What do you mean they took your signaler?” Jack asked. “They didn’t kill him?”

“Naw, man,” chimed in the third man, turning from his perch at the edge of the thick concrete pillar, and staring hard at Jack. “Sonsabitches took him. Just fuckin’ grabbed him right outta our hands and hauled him away.”

Ah, so _this_ was the voice Jack had heard before they’d made their gauntlet run.

The kid had white-blond hair, cut high and tight like the others, and eyes so brown they were almost black. And he was _angry_. Jack saw it simmering off him in waves. Jack knew the type—a hard one to get to fall in line for sure.

Mac looked at Jack, a line bisecting his brows. “Why would they _take_ him?”

Jack had no idea, but everything about this situation was hinky as far as he was concerned.

“Okay, look,” Jack said, shifting his crouch so that his rifle was braced in his left hand. “I’m Sergeant Jack Dalton, Delta Combat Support. This is Specialist Angus MacGyver, EOD. We’re here to rescue you.”

Flynn lifted an eyebrow. “Aren’t you a little short for stormtroopers?” He shook his head when Jack grinned at him. “You’re seriously telling me the entire US Army only has _two guys_ to get us the hell outta here? What, everyone else too busy catching up on _Game of Thrones_?”

“These guys took down a Black Hawk,” Mac started.

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock,” the angry soldier spat. “We pretty much had a front row seat.”

“So, then you know why another can’t get to you _here_ ,” Mac continued, patiently, unflappable in the face of the soldier’s ire. Jack always admired that about this kid; he never reacted to the moment, he reacted to what was _causing_ the moment. “We have to get you guys to a different location and get a ride out of here.”

“Listen,” Flynn interjected, his words directed at the other two soldiers. “These guys are here to help. It’s not their fault the ragheads took Tommy.”

“Tommy?” Mac asked.

Flynn nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. He looked beat, Jack observed. In fact, they all did. He pulled out the extra camelback and handed it to Flynn, then dug into his ruck for any MREs he had on hand.

“Private Charlie Thomas,” Flynn explained, taking the camelback and drinking deeply before passing it over to the black solider. “Our signaler,” he elaborated. “This is Private Scott Willis,” he pointed to the soldier with the deep voice, “and that guy swearing like a sailor is Corporal Lucas Gates.” Each soldier nodded at Jack and Mac as Flynn introduced them. “We’ve been pinned here by these guys for about ten hours now and…well, you can imagine.”

Gates took a drink from the camelback then traded with Jack for one of the MREs. The three men tucked into the food as though they hadn’t eaten all day. _Who knows_ , Jack thought. _Maybe they hadn’t_.

“All three of you been on watch since they took your…took Tommy?” Jack asked. When they all nodded, he sighed. “Shoulda taken shifts. Gotten some rest.”

“Sleep is a crutch,” Gates tossed back automatically.

Jack huffed a laugh, bobbing his head in acceptance.

“You reported some kind of ordnance?” Mac interjected.

Willis shook his head, pointing to the interior of the parking garage. “They planted IEDs all in the interior there,” he explained.

“How’d you know they planted IEDs?” Jack asked.

Flynn lifted a shoulder. “They told us.”

“They _told_ you?”

Willis nodded. “The minute we hunkered down here, they started shouting that they were going to blow us up if we tried to get away.”

“American Bar-B-Que,” Gates added, glancing back at Jack. “Sounds better in Farsi.”

“Anyway,” Flynn continued. “We didn’t know what we were looking for—and we weren’t sure if any of them were pressure plated—so we’ve been staying away.”

Mac nodded. “Smart.”

“Yeah, well,” Gates shifted back around so that he was staring over the edge of the block, “that just means we’re stuck here way too close to the open and those sonsabitches are just waiting for us to stick our heads out so they can shoot ‘em off.”

“I saw an RPG,” Jack reported. “Wonder why they aren’t just blasting us out?”

“They’re messing with us,” Willis growled, and Jack found himself shivering at the tone. “They know we’re stuck and they’re just waiting until we do something stupid.”

“So, let’s not do anything stupid,” Mac replied. “If our only way out is through the parking garage, I’ll get us there.”

“You?” Gates scoffed, glancing at Mac over his shoulder. “You look about as old as my kid brother.”

Mac tilted his head, unphased. “I may look young,” he said, “but that’s only because I am.”

Jack chuckled. “Look, fellas, my boy here is the real deal. I’ve personally seen him disarm over a hundred ordnance—one of them while I was standing on it.”

“And, what,” Flynn interjected, “we just leave Tommy?”

“Do you know where they took him?” Mac asked, turning to face Flynn, everything about his posture sincere.

He didn’t want to leave someone behind any more than these three. But…there was only so much they could do. Flynn shook his head.

“They grabbed him about four hours ago,” Flynn reported. “Just before the RPG took down the Black Hawk.”

Mac looked over at Jack. “I can do a sweep of the structure,” he said. “Find a path out of here.”

“Copy that,” Jack nodded, pulling out his radio and calling back to Base. He made Mac point out on the map where he thought they’d be getting out on the other side of the parking structure and requested a rally point.

When they received confirmation, Jack twisted around to face the street, his big AR-50 on the portable stand, covering the rooftops.

“We’ll keep these guys busy,” Jack eyed the surrounding structures. He knew there was at least one on the rooftop—and who knew if someone had gone up to replace the man he’d taken out on their run. “I counted, what? Six hostiles?”

“Eight,” Gates returned, eyes peering out through a break in the concrete barricade. “Not counting the asshole on the roof.”

“Nine against five,” Jack shrugged. “I’ve had worse odds.”

Mac shrugged out of his ruck and set his IFAK next to it within Jack’s reach. He grabbed his EOD kit from the top of his pack and slid it into place where his first aid kit had rested. He rubbed at his bruised jaw.

“Too bad Hawking isn’t here,” he sighed.

“Who’s that? Another EOD?” asked Willis.

Jack grinned. “You could say that. It’s Mac’s RCV.”

“It’s all good,” Mac grinned at Willis, then Flynn. Gates had his back to them, keeping an eye on the buildings across the way. “I’ve got this.”

Mac straightened, starting to move into the interior of the parking structure at a crouch, but Jack reached out and grabbed his arm.

“You be careful,” Jack ordered, his eyes serious. “We can always find another way out of this.”

“This is the best way,” Mac argued. “They aren’t watching this way—we can get these guys out.”

Jack frowned. “Getting them out isn’t worth you getting blown up.”

“I’m not going to get blown up, Jack,” Mac gave him one of those disarming grins that made Jack’s heart ache.

“You better not,” Jack said. “’cause you know…you go kaboom, I go kaboom.”

Mac huffed a quick, surprised laugh. “What?”

“I’m your Overwatch, kid,” Jack told him. “What happens to you, happens to me.”

“Even if I get blown up?” Mac drew his chin back, a skeptical look on his face.

“You just said you’re _not_ going to get blown up,” Jack pointed out.

“I’m not,” Mac affirmed.

“So, we don’t have anything to worry about,” Jack tilted his head, challenging Mac to say otherwise.

Mac just nodded, that half-grin on his face that screamed _young and immortal._ He turned from Jack, all lanky grace, and took a couple careful steps toward the interior of the parking structure. Jack couldn’t see his face, but he knew the kid’s eyes were skimming the room, left to right, looking for any tell-tale sign of a trigger or explosive device.

It was because Mac was so focused on the room and Jack was so focused on Mac that neither of them saw the shadowed figure moving slowly toward them from the back of the parking structure.

“Oh, shit,” Jack heard Flynn breathe from behind him. “Contact!” he shouted.

He pulled his focus back from Mac and saw the figure approaching at a hesitant pace. Jack brought his rifle up to his shoulder, focusing on the shadow.

“Stop right there,” he called out. “Don’t you move.”

Mac froze, finally bringing his gaze up to see the figure now only a few yards away from him. The figure stopped, obeying Jack’s order. Jack felt Flynn and Willis crowd in closer behind him and stepped forward again, approaching Mac’s back.

“Jack, wait,” Mac called softly. “It’s okay.”

“How is it—”

“I think it’s Tommy,” Mac continued.

“F-Flynn?” the figured called, his voice trembling violently.

“Oh, shit,” Flynn breathed again. “Tommy?”

“I don’t…don’t know what to do,” Tommy called back.

“Jack, step back,” Mac ordered. “Take them with you.”

“Mac?” Jack questioned, not moving. Something about this whole situation had the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.

“Guys,” Gates called. “Something going on out here.”

“Flynn, go check it out,” Jack ordered without taking his eyes off Mac. “Talk to me, Mac.”

“I can see him,” Mac replied. “He’s wearing a suicide vest.”

Jack felt himself go immediately hot then cold. His vision blurred, his heart slamming as though he’d narrowly avoided a collision.

“Walk backwards. Toward me, Mac,” Jack ordered, his voice edged with tension.

“P-please,” Tommy almost sobbed. “Please don’t leave me. They t-taped my hand—”

“Jack,” Mac said in a low, steady voice, taking a half-step forward. “It’s a dead-man’s switch.”

The cold rush swept through Jack once more. If Tommy lifted his thumb from the trigger, the vest blew up—and took all of them with it.

“Dalton!” Flynn called from the make-shift barricade. “They’re buggin’ out!”

“All of them?” Jack called back.

“Negative,” Gates replied. “Two more up on the rooftop. Lost the others. Can’t see ‘em.”

Jack shot a look back over his shoulder. Willis and Gates were crouched behind the barricade, their rifles positioned to cover the street. Flynn was tucked up against the entrance to the parking structure, his rifle trained on the rooftop. A scattered _pft-pft-pft_ of bullets striking the concrete barricade with little aim, more to keep the soldiers from escaping than hitting anyone.

“Mac, don’t you move,” Jack ordered, his tone brooking no argument. “You stay right there, you hear me?”

“I hear you,” Mac replied, incongruously calm.

Jack turned to cover the three soldiers at his back, eyes skimming the street to find the insurgents he’d noted earlier. Flynn was right: they’d either retreated to the interior of the building or had gathered up on the roof. Which meant they were getting clear of the bomb blast.

“They were just keepin’ you here…,” Jack muttered in realization. “They didn’t blow you up because they wanted your own guy to do it. Make it as horrific as possible.”

“Well, that’s just fuckin’ _swell_ ,” Gates growled, firing off three shots directly at an empty doorway to punctuate his sentence.

Willis sank down, his back to the cement barricade, his rifle at his side, and dropped his head in his hands. “This is not how I thought this day was going to go.”

“Guys?” Tommy’s trembling voice came at them again and Jack turned quickly, realizing the voice was now much closer.

The young Corporal was standing within arm’s reach of Mac. To his credit, Mac had not moved, but that didn’t much matter now. Jack sucked his breath through his teeth; Charlie Thomas was young—Mac’s age. His helmet and protective gear were missing. Acne scored his cheeks and jawline and his ears stuck out ridiculously far without the benefit of hair to cover them. What struck Jack most, though, where his eyes—wide, terrified, and as blue as MacGyver’s.

“Easy, Tommy,” Mac soothed, his voice low and soft. “You’re gonna be okay.”

“They…they t-taped my thumb,” Tommy repeated, holding up his right hand.

“I know,” Mac nodded. “I know they did. But it’s going to be okay. I’m going to get you out of that, okay?”

“Mac…,” Jack warned, not liking the direction this was taking one bit.

“Jack,” Mac half turned, pitching his voice toward Jack, but keeping his eyes on Tommy. “He got all this way.”

And then Jack realized what the kid was getting at. Tommy had crossed the entire parking structure without hitting an IED. The others could follow that same path back. They certainly weren’t getting out on the street side with multiple insurgents covering the rooftops.

“I got you,” Jack replied. He turned to Flynn. “You three can follow Tommy’s path out of here, get to the rally point.”

Flynn pulled his head back. “What about you?”

“I’m not letting Mac outta my sight,” Jack asserted. “And I already know he’s not leaving Tommy until that vest is off.”

“Yep,” Mac replied.

“You’re fuckin’ high you think we’re just walking outta here and leaving you guys with a goddamn suicide vest on our boy there,” Gates stated, matter-of-factly.

“This is your shot,” Jack said, eyes skimming from Gates to Willis to Flynn. “They’re waiting for the big kaboom,” he motioned to the rooftops with the barrel of his rifle. “They’re not watching the back.”

Flynn shook his head, shifting his rifle in his grip and looked resolutely back at Jack. “None of us leave until all of us leave.”

Jack looked at Willis, who simply nodded in agreement. He sighed, turning back to Mac.

“Alright then, Carl’s Jr.,” he said, trying to purposefully ease the tension. “It’s all you.”

Mac didn’t need any further prompting. He unstrapped his helmet and pulled his Oakley’s free, dropping both to the ground next to him, visually aligning himself with the frightened soldier. Jack just wished it didn’t make him appear so vulnerable.

“Tommy, I want you to walk toward me until I tell you to stop, okay?”

“O-okay,” Tommy replied.

Jack could see the kid shaking from there, but when he stepped further into the light, stopping when Mac said to, he saw that he was also white as a sheet and was sporting a wicked bruise around his left eye. It was a wonder the kid hadn’t passed out already.

Evidently, Mac had a similar thought because he grabbed a heavy piece of concrete—about the size of a spare tire—and started to drag it closer to Tommy. The noise echoed around the parking structure and the four men tucked into the barricade turned as one to guard the opening. Jack saw there were now five men on the rooftop, but still no one on the streets.

Mac eased Tommy down to sit on the block, then took out a small flashlight from his pack. Jack found himself holding his breath as Mac examined the vest, both front and back, and the wire attached to Tommy’s thumb.

“Jack,” Mac called, his voice tight and authoritative. “Turn off the radio.”

Jack obeyed without question as Mac continued, “Don’t want to risk them reaching out to us and ruining all our hard work, do we?”

It took Jack a beat to realize Mac was talking to Tommy, his tone light, almost conversational in nature. It was only then he registered that Tommy was their signaler—and he wasn’t wearing their radio. The insurgents who’d taken him—and fitted him with the suicide vest—had kept the radio. Which meant that, in all likelihood, they not only planned to use that as a trigger mechanism, but any transmission they sent out from this location could be heard by the men in the build across the way.

“Okay, Tommy, here’s what we’re going to do,” Mac said, crouching down to balance on the balls of his feet. “We’re going to get the vest off you, but we’ve gotta do it in stages. You with me?”

Tommy’s exhale was shaky, but he nodded. Jack kept his head on a swivel, shifting between monitoring Mac’s progress and watching the rooftops. He saw that Willis and Flynn were doing the same, but Gates kept his eyes out, hyper-vigilant.

“You like video games?” Mac asked suddenly.

Jack felt the corner of his mouth pull up in an appreciative grin. This kid was good.

“What?” Tommy asked, his stutter gone in his surprise at Mac’s question.

“Video games,” Mac repeated, and Jack saw him pulling something from his pack. “When I was a kid, I was super into Mario Kart,” he continued. “My best friend back home, he was more into the real player games, though.”

“You mean like Assassin’s Creed?” Tommy asked.

Mac took Tommy’s trigger-bound hand and pulled it close to him. Jack felt his breath stall in the back of his throat.

“Oh, dude, he was all _over_ Assassin’s Creed,” Mac confirmed. “You play that?”

“Yeah, sometimes,” Tommy replied. “Have to go to my buddy’s house, though. We don’t have enough money for a system.”

Jack winced. In that one sentence, he felt like he knew Tommy’s whole story. The Army was this kid’s only chance at the possibility of a better life. Jack scanned the rooftops simply for somewhere to look other than at the young, pale kid sitting with his life in Mac’s hands.

“I get that,” Mac agreed. “My granddad thought it was a waste of time. So, I’d sneak over to my friend’s place.”

Jack smiled at the thought of Mac being a young rebel.

“You knew your granddad?” Tommy asked, Mac’s distraction technique having worked.

Mac pulled out his little red knife and Jack saw him cut two small strips of thick electrical tape. “Yeah, he…uh, raised me. Well, kinda. From when I was about twelve.”

“I never knew my granddad,” Tommy said almost wistfully, completely missing the fact that Mac had lost both parents at a young age.

“Okay, Tommy,” Mac’s tone shifted from conversational to focused in a breath. “I’m going to use this tape to replace your thumb. When I say, I need you carefully roll your thumb half-way off the button, then the other way. You understand?”

Tommy nodded. Jack held his breath. Willis crossed himself.

“Ready? Roll to the right,” Mac moved quickly, though Jack could only see his back and shoulders shifting. “Okay, now left. Great, great job, Tommy. Okay, I’m going to cut the tape from your thumb, so you can relax your hand.”

“Are…are you sure that’s a good idea?” Tommy almost whimpered.

“It’s okay,” Mac said. “You see that guy back there with the biggest rifle here? Probably glaring at me right now?”

Jack saw Tommy shift his eyes over Mac’s shoulder and meet Jack’s gaze, then look back at Mac.

“Yeah, I see him.”

“Well, I made him a promise earlier,” Mac said. “I promised I wasn’t going to get blown up.”

“I like that promise,” Tommy confessed.

Mac nodded. “Well, you’re going to help me keep it, okay?”

Tommy nodded. When Mac clipped the tape across his thumb and instructed him to do so, he eased his thumb off the dead man’s switch, Mac’s replacement tape holding it in place. Mac then immediately traced the wire from the switch to the vest and cut it, setting the switch aside as Tommy massaged the cramped muscles in his hand.

“Jesus Mary and Joseph,” Willis breathed as Mac nodded back at Jack that the first part was over. “I’m getting too old for this.”

“You’re twenty-three,” Flynn pointed out, not taking his eyes from the street level.

“Exactly,” Willis glowered.

Jack took a slow breath, eyes roaming the rooftops once more. The sun was setting earlier as October drew long and at half-passed three in the afternoon, it was already starting to slide inexorably toward the horizon, turning the shadows from the buildings into long fingers and tossing a glare up on top of the houses, making it harder for Jack to keep his eye on the men perched there.

“Hard part’s over,” Mac said, a smile in his voice. “Now, we just gotta get the vest off.”

Tommy nodded, but Jack could see in a glance that Mac had won his complete trust. Mac had him lift his arms so he could see the clasps, flashlight clamped between his teeth.

“What else did you play?” Tommy asked.

“Not much,” Mac confessed. “I was too busy building things.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, you know. Self-propelled solar system models, telescopes, go karts, bombs—”

“What? You’re shitting me,” Willis chimed in.

“I shit you not,” Mac replied, pulling a crimper from his pack. “I kinda accidentally blew up the football field at my high school a couple of years ago.”

“Explains you being EOD,” Gates offered.

“Okay, Tommy, we’re going to clip two wires, and then we should be able to get this thing off you.”

“Should?” Tommy asked, his voice trembling slightly. “What’s the other option?”

“Well,” Mac sighed, looking up at him. “If we don’t get it off, the other option doesn’t much matter, does it?”

Tommy looked over at Jack, then back at Mac, swallowing. “But you’re keeping your promise.”

“I never break my promises.”

Tommy closed his eyes. “Okay, let’s do it.”

As Mac began to move the wire into position, the men on the rooftops—apparently tired of waiting for them to blow themselves up—suddenly shouted, firing a burst from an automatic weapon down toward their barricade. Tommy jerked in surprise and Jack saw Mac’s hand flinch, the echoing gasp of air between his teeth standing Jack’s hair on end.

“Shit,” Mac muttered.

“What?” Jack demanded.

“Pulled a wire we didn’t want to pull,” Mac said, and Jack felt his entire body clench into a fist of tension.

“Oh, fuck me,” Gates groaned. “Are you serious? After all that the vest is gonna take us out?”

“Shut up, Gates,” Flynn growled. “Tommy, you just hold still, okay?”

Mac was frantically patting down his pockets; Jack had no idea how much time they had before ‘wrong wire’ turned into oblivion, but he wasn’t about to distract Mac by asking questions. After only a few seconds, Mac pulled a paperclip from a pocket on his fatigues and hurriedly pulled it open, inserting one end into the devise strapped to Tommy’s chest.

The moment it was done, Mac dropped from a crouch to sit on his backside, grabbing a breath.

“You stopped it?” Tommy asked, his voice cracking.

“Yeah,” Mac nodded, rubbing the heel of his hand against the bridge of his nose.

“Minute I’m home, I’m going to all the Office Depots and buying every paperclip I see,” Willis declared.

Jack held out a fist without looking and nodded when he felt the young Private bump it.

“Want to get this thing off?” Mac asked Tommy.

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?” Tommy replied, voice cracking.

Gates barked out a laugh and even Jack found that he had to grin—though his heart was still attempting to climb his ribcage and fling itself out of his mouth. Mac leaned forward again, and with two more clips from his crimpers, he was able to pull the buckle free, sliding the vest off Tommy’s head and shoulders and setting it aside.

Tommy slid to the ground—on the opposite side of the cement block from the vest—and laid on his back, a tear sliding out of the side of his eye.

“Thank you,” he whispered, his voice young and scared. Jack could easily picture this kid being afraid of the dark.

“You’re welcome,” Mac replied softly.

“That was incredible,” Flynn declared. “You saved our asses, man.”

Mac looked over his shoulder at them, a tired grin exposing his dimple. “Well, we’re still stuck here,” he said, but then looked around. “Although….”

“Uh-oh,” Jack said, watching as Mac’s blue eyes skittered and skimmed the buildings on the other side of the barricade. “What’s going on in that big brain of yours, kid?”

“Kandahar is old,” Mac started. “I mean, _really_ old. Alexander the Great founded the original city in, like…300 B.C.E.”

Jack saw Flynn and Gates exchange a glance. He held up a hand. “Just…just wait. Give him a minute,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.

“And these buildings are built on top of…of _hundreds_ of years of ancient construction,” Mac continued, climbing to his feet and stepping closer to the edge of the parking structure, “which is probably why this building collapsed so easily when the bomb went off in the hotel….”

After another beat, he turned suddenly to Jack. “I’ve got an idea.”

“I know that tone,” Jack replied, his eyebrows climbing his forehead. “Does it involve explosives?”

“Yep,” Mac nodded, eyes already tracking to the suicide vest.

“I was afraid of that,” Jack sighed. “Let me radio base—wait, is it good to radio, or am I going to ruin our day?”

“You’re good,” Mac replied, already pulling the components of the vest apart.

Jack turned the radio back on.

“Base, this is Rickshaw 4-2.”

_“Copy you, Rickshaw.”_

“Listen fast. This is a party line and the neighbors have itchy trigger fingers,” Jack warned.

Flynn shot a look over to Mac. “Did he just quote _Die Hard_?”

“I’ve learned it’s best not to ask,” Mac grinned as he pulled out his service pistol and removed the clip.

“We’ve secured the four and have a path out,” Jack reported, watching as Mac ejected several bullets, then used the edge of a smaller blade in his Swiss Army knife to pry off the jacket, piling the gunpowder on one of the vest panels. “Need you to be at the rally point.”

_“Roger that, Rickshaw. A hawk and a warrior headed your way.”_

“Copy that,” Jack replied, ending the communication and looking over at the five younger men. “Looks like they’re going to send a Kiowa with the Black Hawk this time. Extra cover.”

“’bout time,” Gate growled.

“What the hell is he doing?” Flynn asked Jack, his eyes on Mac’s hunched form.

“Getting us out of here,” Jack replied.

Mac hurried to where he’d left his ruck and Jack saw him digging into the front pocket to grab something before heading back to the components of the vest. Five minutes later, he had two mini grenades, complete with fuses.

“How in the hell…?” Willis bleated, staring at Mac in awe.

Mac was too busy thinking about their next steps to notice, however. Jack could practically see thoughts slicing and sparking behind his eyes as he crouched at the inner edge of the barricades. Tommy scrambled up and made his way over next to Willis, accepting the other soldier’s sidearm since his had been usurped when he’d been taken.

“So, here’s what I’m thinking,” Mac said. “If we take out the south corner of that building there,” he jerked his chin toward the building he was talking about, “the structure won’t be able to withstand the imbalance. It’ll collapse enough that it’ll send those guys to the ground,” his eyes tracked up to the five insurgents on the rooftop. “One way or another.”

“And we just, what…,” Flynn asked, frowning, “run the other way?”

Mac lifted a shoulder. “Well…, yeah. There’s a clear path back through—”

He never finished his thought.

In retrospect, Jack realized he should have seen it coming, but the relative safety of the cement barricade coupled with Mac’s ingenious use of the suicide vest distracted him from the very real danger of an unprotected rear flank. Roughly mid-way through the abandoned parking structure, someone began firing toward them, cutting off Mac’s words and sending the six men to the ground.

Tommy yelped, a pained cry, and Flynn and Jack turned as one to fire back toward the interior of the parking structure, Jack’s AR-50 tearing through the figure in seconds.

Before he was able to take a breath, however, Gates’ terrified shout of, “ _RPG_!” ripped through the abandoned structure.

And the world exploded.

For a very long moment, Jack simply hung, suspended in silence. There was no pain, no noise, no panic. He was floating, oblivious to anything outside of this temporary peace.

But then reality crashed down on him, pressing angry hands against his chest, wrapping fingers of wrath around his throat, and screaming inside his head like a vengeful banshee. He choked, rolling to the side instinctively as he gasped for breath, his ears ringing painfully.

He couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t see anything, and it seemed that instead of pulling in air, he was breathing sand.

He groaned, wanting to slide back to that peace, if just for a moment. _Everything_ hurt.

_Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?_

“Pop?” Jack rasped, still not quite able to open his eyes, his voice dry and grating as though sandpaper coated the inside of his throat.

_Get up, boy. You got work do to_.

“Yessir,” he mumbled, prying his eyes open—his father’s voice so crystal clear in that moment, he absolutely believed he would see the man crouching before him.

He was therefore surprised when instead he saw the blood-smeared face of Specialist Henry Flynn lying directly in his line of sight.

“Son of a bitch!” he groaned as the last several minutes came rushing back to him.

Coughing, Jack pushed up to one elbow, blinking around in the settling dust. The cement beams had been scattered, only one of them providing any kind of cover. Flynn lay prone next to him, blood covering one half of his face and painting his back rather thoroughly. Pushing himself to a seated position, Jack fumbled for his rifle, closing his hand around the barrel and bringing it up across his lap.

His ears were still ringing, but his vision was clearing. Across from him, he could see that Private Willis was conscious, but stunned—the young man’s face displaying the same level of confusion Jack felt. Next to him lay Gates, and Jack didn’t have to check the soldier’s pulse to know that the warning about the RPG was the last thing he’d ever say.

“Mac?” Jack murmured, looking around.

He saw Tommy to his left, the kid blinking, stunned, up to the dust-covered sky. His right arm and leg were bleeding—it looked as though a bullet had demolished his knee.

“Mac!” Jack rolled to his knees, keeping his rifle close, and crawled toward the parking garage from the shattered barricade. “Answer me, dammit!”

The impact and resulting explosion from the RPG had collapsed the parking structure at mid-point. Jack found himself hoping that it had crushed the gunman who’d opened fire just before it hit. What it had done for sure, though, was cut off any chance they had of escaping that way.

“ _Mac_!”

“J-jack….”

It was weak, but it was him. Jack would know that voice anywhere. He knew it as well as his own.

“I’m coming, kid,” Jack called back. “Hang on.”

He staggered to a crouched stance and moved away from the relative safety of the shattered barricade toward the remains of the parking garage. It took him a moment, but he found Mac leaning against a piece of the parking structure, his long legs splayed out before him, face bloody. One of his mini grenades was still clutched in one hand, the other hand wrapped around his middle.

“J-jack…what…?”

Jack fell to his knees in front of the young EOD, wincing as he saw the subconjunctival hemorrhage in the kid’s left eye, the blue iris standing out in sharp contrast to the blood-shot red. There was a deep gash just above his left eyebrow, blood still flowing freely.

“Hey,” Jack breathed, reaching out and gently clasped the side of Mac’s head where his jawline met his neck. “Hey, I got you…I got you, brother.”

He could feel fine tremors beneath his hand. He didn’t know where else Mac was hurt; he couldn’t see any obvious holes, but Mac wasn’t moving and the way he held his torso spiked Jack’s worry.

“D-did I do this?” Mac asked, blinking up at him blurrily, confusion in his blue eyes.

“What?” Jack drew his head back in surprise. “No, man. It was the RPG, remember?”

“RPG?” Man, the kid was _wrecked_. His voice trembled.

“It was the RPG,” Jack asserted. “Came from the other rooftop.”

“RPG,” Mac repeated, blinking. “From…from the other rooftop.”

“That’s it,” Jack nodded. “That’s right. You with me, bud?”

“What about,” Mac looked around, his eyes beginning to clear. “What about the others?”

“We gotta get them outta here, Mac,” Jack said quietly. “You solid? Can you move on your own?”

He knew just by looking at the kid that he wasn’t going to make it far, but if he could just get him to the extraction point….

“I’m good,” Mac said, his voice sounding steadier this time.

He moved his arm away from his middle and used it to push himself to his knees. Jack tried to ignore the way Mac’s face lost all color and reached for his arm to help him stand. They made their way back to the barricade and the four soldiers. It was only a few feet away, but by the time they got there, Mac was panting for air.

“Gates’ is dead,” Willis reported as they collapsed next to Tommy.

“I know,” Jack replied, checking Tommy’s wounds. It was bad; if they didn’t get him out of there soon, he wasn’t making it out at all. “Mac,” Jack turned to his young Tech. “I want you to patch him up, okay? You focus on Tommy, copy?”

“Copy,” Mac replied, blinking hard.

He reached for his IFAK and Jack turned to Flynn, checking the young Specialist’s pulse. It was fast and thready, but there. The blood on his back came from a deep laceration that Jack easily found via the tear in his uniform. He reached for the spare IFAK to get a pressure dressing on it.

“Willis?” Jack called. “Talk to me, man.”

“I’m solid,” Willis called back. “I can move.”

“Keep an eye on the street,” Jack ordered, pressing the dressing against Flynn’s back and wrapped the bandages around to the young soldier’s front.

“Contact!”

Jack heard the report of a rifle behind him and amazingly didn’t even flinch.

“Willis?”

“Clear,” Willis reported, chambering another round.

“Rooftops?”

“I see four bogies,” Willis reported. “Rifles only.”

“Copy that,” Jack replied, carefully rolling Flynn over, checking him for more wounds. He glanced over at Mac. “You still with me, kid?”

As if his radar was tuned just to Jack’s voice, Mac seemed to sink into himself at the question, his head bobbing reflexively in response.

“He’s bleeding…pretty bad, Jack,” Mac replied, and Jack could see that he was tying off a bandage on Tommy’s leg, the mini grenade sitting next to his knee. Jack wasn’t sure what had happened to the other one, but one might just be enough. “We…we gotta get him…out of here.”

Jack nodded once, registering the breathy tone wrapped around Mac’s words. “You still got your little bombs on you?”

“I got one,” Mac replied, which Jack knew, but he had to keep Mac in the game.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Jack said, rotating on one knee until he could see both Willis and Mac. “I got Flynn. Mac, you help Tommy. Willis, you carry Gates.” Both young men nodded at him, ready to obey without question. Willis’s eyes were clear, focused, but Mac…Jack felt his heart clench at how hard the kid was working to stay present. To stay _conscious_. “I’ll throw that MacGyver’d bomb you’ve got there, just like we planned. Then we run like hell.”

“Is that gonna work?” Willis asked, already shifting his rifle to his shoulder so that he could free up his arms for Gates.

“It h-has to,” Mac replied, blinking hard as though forcing his wounded eyes to focus. “I don’t…don’t have anything else.”

_Oh, kid_ , Jack’s mind whispered. _It’s not all on you to save us._

“It’ll work well enough,” Jack said. “C’mon, boys. We got a ride waiting for us.”

Two sets of eyes—one bloodied and shell-shocked, the other devastated and determined—met his, each nodding their acceptance. Jack set down his rifle—he’d been clutching it like a damn security blanket since he came to—and shouldered his ruck, making sure the radio was flicked to ‘on’. He plucked the mini grenade from Mac’s outstretched hand, pulling his Pop’s Bic lighter from the cargo pocket on his fatigues and lit the fuse.

“Aim for the…the corner of the building,” Mac instructed, pulling Tommy up to a sitting position, the young radio operator whimpering in pain at the motion.

Jack nodded, then stood and with the grace of DiMaggio, lobbed the grenade at the corner of the building just as Mac instructed. In seconds, the explosive went off and Jack stumbled back as the building shook, the wall crumbling, the roof tilting dangerously to the side sending the four men still visible on top to their knees.

“Move!” Jack ordered, bending over and pulling Flynn up and over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. He had to leave his AR-50 behind; there was only so much he could carry at once with his head spinning the way it was. He pulled out his service pistol, holding it at the ready.

Willis mimicked him with Gates’ body and Mac dragged Tommy’s good arm over his shoulder, pulling the wounded radio man with him. Jack led the bedraggled group along the front of the ruined parking structure, the air saturated with the dust from two explosions and thick with screams in Farsi from the men who’d been on the rooftop. He braced himself for the burn of a bullet with every step, willing the two rattled soldiers behind him to keep going.

_“Rickshaw 4-2, copy.”_

Jack skidding to a staggering halt, taking a knee and rolling Flynn off his shoulders so that he could grab the radio. The wounded Specialist didn’t even flinch as his body hit the hard-packed sand.

“This is Rickshaw 4-2,” Jack panted, eyes tracking back to where Willis and Mac paused with their burdens. Mac swayed where he stood, eyes blinking heavily; Willis squared up, his friend’s blood soaking through his fatigues. “Tell me you’ve got a bird on the way.”

_“Two minutes out.”_

“We’ll be there.” Jack holstered the radio and lifted Flynn once more, turning to the men behind him. “Almost home, boys.”

Three more steps and they were clear of the buildings, which sent Jack’s pulse into overdrive. The lingering pain behind his eyes that had been threatening since he’d come around surged forward and he squinted against the dusty light that surrounded them. The sun was slipping lower on the horizon, turning the world sepia-toned and making it harder for him to check for hostiles.

But he heard the _thwap-thwap_ of the helo blades clear enough.

He turned, eyes narrowing against the burn of sand.

“Move, move, move,” he shouted to Willis, allowing the younger soldier to head past him with Gates across his shoulders.

He kept his eyes on Mac. The young EOD Tech was staggering, flagging further back than Jack had thought. As he watched, willing Mac to move faster, he saw to his horror that two men—possibly from the buildings, possibly additional insurgents, he had no way of knowing—were headed their way, rifles up.

“Contact!” He shouted. “Mac, behind you!”

But Mac had left his weapon back at the barricade. And Jack had Flynn across his shoulders, a living, breathing dead-weight.

Jack heard the Black Hawk land and darted a squinted-eyed look over his shoulder. Willis was handing Gates’ body over to waiting arms and was climbing inside. The smaller Kiowa OH-58D helicopter was circling as the unmistakable sound of rifle fire came from Mac’s direction.

Jack turned again, wanting to put Flynn down and run to Mac, yet knowing he was the unconscious man’s only chance of getting to safety. He saw Tommy jerk in Mac’s arms, red blossom on his chest from a bullet ripping through his back. He saw Mac stumble and go to his knees, coming up again, slowly, and dragging Tommy with him.

“Move, Mac!” Jack shouted. “Get to the helo!”

Mac didn’t answer— _couldn’t_ answer. Jack could see that all his strength was channeled into pulling Tommy forward. It was clear to Jack: Mac was not leaving that kid behind.

Even if it killed him.

Growling, Jack turned, running as fast as his burden would allow, and got to the Black Hawk, handing Flynn over to Willis and the rescuers. He turned back toward Mac but was stopped by a strong grip.

“Get in, sir!” shouted one of the Black Hawk pilots.

Jack could hear the retort of more bullets behind him. Mac was taking fire and his Overwatch wasn’t there. He wasn’t _there_.

“Lemme go!” Jack demanded, tugging his arm free.

“We gotta pull out,” the pilot told him, “it’s too hot!”

“You wait!” Jack pointed at him. “You wait for them!”

_“Pedro one six,”_ Jack heard crackling over the radio. He looked up; it had to be the Kiowa _. “We’re coming right two seven zero, north of you.”_

“You wait!” Jack demanded, locking eyes with Willis as the young Private clutched Flynn’s unconscious body to him.

Jack turned, running back to Mac. His heart dropped as he saw the young EOD Tech fall to his knees once more, Tommy held tightly against him. Jack raised his service pistol, aiming over Mac’s head and fired as he ran. He emptied one clip, seeing one of the gunmen fall, then ejected the empty clip and slammed a new one home, continuing to fire as he reached Mac.

“J-Jack—” Mac rasped, his voice spent, his eyes barely tracking. “Take him…take him….”

Jack went to his knees, pulling Tommy from Mac’s grip and pressing his fingers against the radio operator’s throat. Nothing. He tried a different position. Still nothing.

“ _Arrrghh_!” Jack growled. “God _damn_ it!”

He raised his weapon again, roaring wordless rage as he fired toward the second figure, only stopping to breathe when the figure fell. Mac was slumped to the side, breath grating audibly as he clutched as his torso.

“Take him…,” he begged again. “ _Please_ ….”

Jack couldn’t tell him that Tommy was gone, not after all he’d done to save him.

“Get up, Mac,” Jack demanded. “On your feet.”

Mac tried to push himself upright on trembling arms, but Jack could tell just by the ragged sound of his breathing that something was broken inside. He wasn’t getting any further on his own.

“I’ll come back for Tommy,” he said. Knowing it wasn’t true. Needing to get Mac out of there.

Mac shook his head. “Take him.” He blinked up at Jack, his blue eyes standing out like neon against the broken blood vessels. “ _Please_ , Jack.”

“Goddammit,” Jack muttered. He shouldered Tommy’s body, pushing shakily to his feet. “You stay with me, Angus. You hear me?”

Mac nodded weakly, blue eyes trained on his face as though memorizing it.

“You _stay with me_.”

He meant it as an order for Mac to follow him, but he’d take the kid just staying awake until he could come back for him. He headed back to the Black Hawk, handing Tommy’s body through the opening into reaching hands.

“We gotta pull out,” the pilot told him. “Eyes in the sky report two vehicles with hostiles headed this way.”

“I’m going back for my Tech,” Jack told him.

“You’re in now or not at all,” the pilot responded.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Jack demanded.

The pilot’s face was obscured by his visor, but Jack saw his mouth harden. This wasn’t easy for him either. The pilot reached up to his radio and pulled the mic closer to his lips.

“This is Pedro one six,” the pilot said into his comms. “We have two cat-A soldiers down here. Need warrior support. We’re RTB.”

Jack was breathing hard but nodded. At least they wouldn’t be alone.

He backed away, catching Willis’ eyes as the door was slid shut, then turned and ran back to where Mac was now lying prone in the sand. He crouched over him as the Black Hawk kicked up sand, then rolled Mac over to his back. The kid’s eyes were closed, and Jack could hear him wheezing.

He tapped Mac’s face gently. “C’mon, kiddo, open those eyes. I need you here.”

Mac blinked his eyes open, fighting to focus. “Jack.”

“Yeah, kid, it’s me,” Jack nodded, tucking his fingers behind Mac’s neck and easing him up so that he rested on Jack’s knee. “You need to stay awake for me.”

He had to get Mac on his feet, get him over to where the Kiowa could land. It was their only shot of getting out of there before those vehicles showed. His hands shook as he cupped Mac’s face.

“Hurts….” Mac choked out.

“I know it hurts, but you have to stay awake,” Jack implored him, feeling his own body start to tick down, adrenaline that had carried him this far beginning to tap out. Mac’s heavy-lidded eyes slipped shut. “Hey, hey Mac,” Jack tapped his cheek. “Don’t close your eyes, kid. _Please_ don’t close your eyes. I need you with me, okay? I need you here, so we can go home. You want to go home, don’t you?”

Mac coughed, wincing, then blinked blurrily at Jack. “Home?”

The word was laced with such longing and confusion, Jack almost sobbed. “Yeah, kid. Home. I want to get out of here—how ‘bout you?”

Mac nodded. Jack started to sit him up, but froze as Mac cried out, his shaking hand pressing against his chest.

“Lemme see, lemme see,” Jack whispered frantically, listening for the Kiowa, for the vehicles, for the bullet that would end all of this in an instant.

He pulled Mac’s shirt from where it was tucked into his pants and saw instantly what the problem was. He hadn’t seen it before because of the way Mac had been supporting Tommy—and the fact that Tommy’s blood was all over Mac’s battledress. A piece of shrapnel—or a bullet—had creased Mac’s side and, based on the bruising, Jack could see that he easily had one if not two broken ribs.

“Goddammit,” Jack muttered. “C’mon, kid. I got you. I got you.”

Mac grit his teeth, growling low with pain as Jack pulled him to his feet. He dragged one of Mac’s arms across his shoulder and headed for the clearing, seeing the Kiowa circling. The small helicopters were built for reconnaissance and support of ground troops; they were in no way meant to haul wounded soldiers from a hot zone.

But right now, it was all they had.

He felt Mac sagging against him as he stopped, waiting to see where the small helo would land.

Suddenly, a burst of gunfire erupted from behind them. Jack flinched, looking back over his shoulder toward the empty expanse South of the collapsed parking structure. True to the report, he could see two vehicles headed their way—one of them a pick-up truck with a .50 Browning machine gun mounted to the roof.

“Son of a _bitch_ ,” he growled.

His AR-50 was back in the destroyed barricade. His sidearm was empty. They were totally exposed.

Except for the Kiowa.

It swooped low over them, laying down a burst of cover fire that was enough of a deterrent the vehicles separated, the one without the gun mount turning to find cover near the parking structure.

“Yeah, baby!” Jack whopped, holding Mac up in a half-hug. “Take that you bastards!”

The Kiowa turned back for them, setting down in a hurricane of sand, causing Jack to duck his head, curling toward Mac to try to protect him as well. The minute the skids hit the ground, Jack was on the move, pulling Mac with him. Just as they reached the door, he felt Mac’s knees give way, the kid collapsing against him.

“Mac!”

The door opened, and Jack squinted up to see the co-pilot reaching for them. He gathered Mac’s slim frame close and lifted him as best he could to the waiting arms of the co-pilot. Mac was completely pliant, his arms and legs smacking weakly against the floor of the small helo.

“They’re coming back ‘round,” called the female voice of the pilot.

“Get the hell in here, Sir,” shouted the co-pilot.

Jack nodded, climbing in and pulling Mac into his lap, folding his body in the small space just behind the pilot seats. There wasn’t time to close the door, so he curled forward once more, protecting his EOD from the blowing sand as the pilots pulled the Kiowa up as quickly as they could with the added weight.

As soon as they were clear of the city and the risk of being taken down by a well-aimed RPG, Jack reached up to tug on the co-pilot’s sleeve.

“You saved our asses,” he shouted over the sound of the blades.

The co-pilot nodded, then handed him a set of headgear and mic. Jack repeated his sentiment.

The pilot shot him a look over her shoulder. “Weren’t about to leave you behind, Sergeant,” she told him. “You got those boys out of there; one way or another, they’re all going home.”

Jack felt tears burn the back of his sand-blasted eyes. He curled Mac’s limp body close to him, relishing the feel of the kid’s breath against his neck.

“Yeah, they are,” he said. “But not because of me.”

The day started with an assignment to clear seven streets of IEDs and ended with the rescue of four soldiers. And _none_ of them would have gotten out of there had it not been for the kid in his arms. Mac groaned slightly, shifting against Jack’s grip.

“We get everyone out?” Mac asked on a breathless whisper.

Jack felt his own sob even before he heard it, tears tracing a path through the dirt on his face. “Yeah, kid,” he sniffed, shifting his grip on Mac so that he could look at his blood-covered face. Mac’s eyes were closed, but the line between his brows told Jack all he needed to know about the kid’s awareness. “We got everyone out. You did good. You did real good.”

Mac exhaled. “Thanks, Jack.”

Jack simply nodded, fingers of emotion gripping his throat too tightly for any sound to emerge. He held on to Mac as the Kiowa returned to base, knowing that all too soon, the kid would be facing a pain that was unique to soldiers alone.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Kitchen, Downtown Los Angeles**  
Present Day  
0115 hrs  
_Matty_

The room was completely silent when Jack stopped speaking.

It was almost as though every person held their breath, seeing the daring Kiowa rescue, feeling the weight of the wounded, grieving the silence of the dead. Matty sat with her fingers over her mouth, trying valiantly to hide the pain and the horror she felt listening to what two of her team had lived through, knowing it was only one of many stories of that nature Jack could tell.

“I didn’t…,” Flynn’s emotion-rough voice cut through the quiet. “No one told me.”

Matty’s eyes shifted from Jack’s anguished eyes to Flynn’s haunted expression and she was suddenly irrationally relieved that Mac was unconscious. She didn’t think she could bear his pain at reliving that day in Kandahar as well.

“I didn’t know it was you,” Flynn tried again, clearing his throat. “All I remember was…was Mac getting the suicide vest off Tommy and then….” He shook his head. “Next thing I knew, I was waking up in the infirmary and they told me I was heading home.”

The room was quiet as Flynn gathered his thoughts.

“Willis came by once before I was sent to a hospital in Germany,” Flynn revealed. “Told me about Gates and Tommy. But…just said that it was the RPG.”

“Might’ve been all he could remember,” Jack offered, his voice rough from speaking. “Trauma does weird things to your head.”

“I shoulda…I shoulda _said_ something,” Flynn continued, his eyes on the middle distance, shiny with tears. “Done something. I shoulda _found_ you guys.”

“You made it home, Hoss,” Jack asserted. “That’s what matters.”

Flynn looked over at him then, his expression incredulous. “You _carried me_ out of there, man. And I…I never even _thanked_ you.”

Jack’s eyes went distant, his face lined with an unnamed emotion. Matty watched him, waiting. Wondering.

“I wanted to leave you behind,” Jack confessed. “Minute I saw that Mac wasn’t gonna make it to the helo, I was ready to leave you, so I could get him out of there.”

“But, you didn’t,” Flynn pressed.

Jack shook his head, wiping emotion from his face with one hand. “I didn’t.”

“Why?”

Jack huffed a pained laugh. “I couldn’t imagine the look on his face when I told him I picked him over you. He’d...he would never have forgiven me.”

Flynn nodded, and Matty saw Ben stand up to change out the bag of IV saline.

“What did he say when he found out about Tommy?” Flynn asked.

Jack’s face seemed to fold in on itself, and Matty took a slow breath, working to keep her expression neutral in the wake of Jack’s pain. He simply shook his head, unable to answer the question.

“No wonder Mac had nightmares about that,” Bozer said quietly, and Matty thought she heard the choke of tears threaded through his words. “He’d never talk about it, not in details, but…,” he sniffed, dragging a hand down his face. “Nothing really seemed to make it better, y’know?”

“It’s not the kind of things you can fix with pancakes,” Jack nodded, then slid a half-smile toward Bozer. “No matter how good they are.”

“What happened when you got back to base?” Riley asked, her eyes pinned to Mac’s blood-stained face, his eyes moving rapidly beneath his closed lids as though he were seeing everything Jack shared with them. “I mean…he didn’t go home?”

Jack shook his head. “He got patched up, was on medical leave for a bit, but…,” Jack carded his fingers backwards through Mac’s tangled, blood-crusted hair. “He’s damn good at his job. And they needed him. For thirty more days.”

“And then, what,” Riley pressed. “You just went to work for…, uh…the think tank?”

Jack glanced over at Matty, and she wondered if he were thinking about being recruited by Patricia Thornton, wondering if he were making the connection to James MacGyver’s Oversight, the puppet master behind almost every choice Mac thought he’d made on his own.

“Something like that,” Jack said softly, frowning as Mac shifted suddenly, his wounded arm twitching, head jerking to the side as if avoiding a blow. “Whoa, there, bud,” Jack said suddenly, a hand coming up to cup the back of Mac’s head. “Easy.”

It had been over an hour since Mac had last stirred. Matty was thankful for the reprieve—for all their sakes. But it didn’t seem as though Mac would be getting a break for much longer. A low groan echoed from inside the oxygen mask and Jack pushed himself a bit further upright so that he could shift his hold on Mac.

“Hey, Mac,” Jack said softly, eyes flicking up to Ben, then over to where Flynn had climbed to his knees. “You’re okay, man.”

Mac’s eyes opened slowly, the blue irises dulled by pain. Matty stood up, moving cautiously forward as she saw the young agent’s left hand come up in a clumsy swipe at the oxygen mask. She registered the exact moment they were in trouble: Mac’s eyes widened, and he dug his heels into the cushioned bench, pushing back against Jack.

“It’s okay! Hey…hey, easy,” Jack tried, grabbing for Mac’s flailing hand.

Matty could hear Mac’s ragged, panicked breaths echoing off the oxygen mask as the terrified agent tried desperately to escape the perceived torture. Ben was trying to grab Mac’s arm as well, trying to keep the IV in place. Mac curled his hand into a trembling fist. Jack was at a bad angle, trying to keep from hitting Mac’s wounded shoulder as he held his partner against him.

“Mac, easy, man. Hey,” Jack tried to calm his partner, but Matty could hear Mac gasping out panicked words.

“Can’t…can’t breathe…can’t _breathe_ ….”

“Yes, you can,” Jack told him. “If you can talk, you can breathe.”

“ _Nnngghhh_ ….”

“You gotta calm down, kid,” Jack crooned. “Hey, Angus, listen to me, man. You’re okay. I _promise_ you’re okay.”

But Mac was having none of it. A low, almost keening sound had started to build up from his chest, the table cloth blanket having slipped down to his waist, the sunburst bruise on his sternum seeming to stretch as Mac panted for air.

Matty shook her head. She couldn’t take this anymore.

“Take it off him,” Matty ordered, her voice surprising the men surrounding the young agent. “He needs to believe he’s safe,” she continued, calling out over the low moans and ragged gasps. “He’s scared, just take it off him.”

Flynn reached up and pulled the oxygen mask free, Jack grabbing it and sliding it over Mac’s head. Mac dropped his head back against Jack’s shoulder, grabbing for air with trembling lips. Flynn leaned over until he was in Mac’s eyeline.

“That’s it, man. You’re good,” Flynn encouraged. “You’re okay.”

“Where’s…Jack?” Mac wrecked voice made Matty wince.

She marveled for a moment at the fact that no matter what condition Mac was in, Jack was the first person he sought. Her musing yesterday morning hadn’t been far off: without one the other simply wasn’t whole.

“Right here, bud,” Jack said his mouth near Mac’s ear in the position he was in. “I got you.”

Mac blinked and turned his head slightly toward his partner’s voice. Matty grimaced as she saw the bandage Ben had wrapped around his head was now stained red over the deep cut along Mac’s hairline. His panicked thrashing had apparently opened the wound. Her eyes darted to his shoulder, and she was relieved to see the bandage was still white.

“What…how did we…get out?” Mac reached across his chest and Jack grabbed his flailing hand, anchoring him.

“Out of what?” Flynn asked, easing back to give Mac visibility to the room—although a room lit by cell phone flashlights, several of which had faded due to low charge, was hardly something the concussed agent would recognize.

“Where’s…Tommy?” Mac asked, his voice slurring, his breathing barely slowing down. “Need to get…get the vest….”

Matty met Jack’s eyes and saw that he realized it the same moment she did: Mac had _heard_ him. The whole time he’d been talking about Kandahar, Mac had been listening on some level, the vividness of Jack’s retelling acting as a vocal anchor.

“Oh, shit,” Flynn breathed, stepping back until he was next to Matty. He reached up, shoving his hands through his tangled, black hair. “I’m sorry…God, I’m _so_ sorry….”

Jack eased Mac further upright and shifted to the side so that he was in a better position to look Mac in the face. She saw Mac’s blue eyes dart quickly around the room, confusion tangled in his expression, until Jack’s hands cupped either side of his head, his thumbs gently bracing the younger man’s jawline.

“Hey, bud.”

Mac stared back at Jack, and Matty could see him fighting to get his breathing under control.

“Need you to slow your breathing down, just a little bit, you hear me?”

Mac nodded, Jack’s hands moving with the motion.

“Just one easy breath,” Jack crooned. “You got this.”

Mac pulled in a slow breath, never taking his eyes off his partner. Jack nodded, then encouraged another slow breath until Mac was back to the less-panicked rhythm of before. Behind her, Matty heard a prayer being whispered and another person mutter, “Can’t take much more of this…we have to get out of this place.”

She wasn’t sure who said it, but she agreed. As Jack and Ben checked Mac’s bandages and Ben reattached the IV, Matty found Riley, taking the young hacker’s chilled hand in hers.

“Matty, I…,” Riley’s voice was trembling, her eyes luminous in the glow of the cell phone lights. She was watching Jack and Mac, anguish for her friends evident in her expression. “This is just…so not good. He’s…I’ve never seen him so…so _hurt_. And confused. I mean, Mac’s _never_ confused. He’s always four steps ahead of all of us.”

“You’re doing great, Riley,” she said, drawing the girl’s dark eyes down to hers. “You’re keeping us all balanced, you know that?”

Riley’s chin quivered slightly, but she pulled the emotion in. “I’m not doing much.”

“You’re doing more than you know,” Matty said. “But I need you to do it for a little longer.”

“You want me to check in?” Riley asked. “See how much longer—”

 _“This is the L.A. County Fire Department,”_ the radio on the belt of Riley’s dress squawked, making them both jump. Riley picked it up before they could finish saying, _“I need to speak to Riley Davis.”_

“This is Riley,” she said into the radio. “Tell me you guys have something.”

 _“We have something,”_ the woman on the other end reported. _“I need you to get everyone as far away from the West side wall as possible.”_

“West side…?” Riley looked at Flynn for help.

The young chef looked pained as he pointed toward where Jack, Mac, and Ben were hunched on the bench.

“What are you going to do?” Riley asked.

 _“We are going to drop an inflatable rescue air cushion through the same hole we’ve sent supplies,”_ the woman informed them. _“We need you to inflate it against that wall—it’s apparently the one that is holding up the others. We stabilize that, and we can pull another away to get you out of there.”_

Riley looked around at the survivors, then at Matty, her eyes large with the burden of responsibility.

“Okay, give us a minute.”

“Bozer,” Matty called. “Clear a space over here, on the far wall, and put some of the table cloths down.” As Bozer got into motion, Matty and Flynn began to wave the patrons away from the West side wall, pulling the heavy tables with them as potential protection.

“We need to get Mac over there,” Matty said, looking at Jack, who was now sitting next to his partner, Mac slumped against him, Jack’s arm anchoring him at the waist.

Jack nodded. “Hey, bud, you ready for a change of scenery?”

But Mac wasn’t looking at Jack—his eyes were tracking around the room, following the beams of light that illuminated the crumbling ceiling, lines of concentration rather than pain pulling his brows forward. Matty frowned, watching as he scanned the jigsaw puzzle formation of walls that had trapped them in this portion of the restaurant for the last several hours.

“Mac?” She called.

“The walls,” he said, wincing as Jack helped him sit forward. “…the walls are wrong.”

“Yeah, kid,” Jack was standing next to him, one hand on his back, the other gripping his left arm where Ben had detached the IV, leaving the catheter inserted into the back of Mac’s hand. “You probably don’t remember the earthquake—"

“The…the walls, Jack,” Mac tried, gripping Jack’s shirt with his left hand. “They’re… _ahhh_ ,” he winced as Jack lifted him to his feet. He leaned heavily on Jack as his partner slid his left arm across his shoulders. “They’re…wrong.”

“Holy shit, he’s totally lost it,” DeAngelo muttered, sounding slightly dismayed by that fact.

“No, wait,” Flynn was moving toward the front of the building. “Look, he’s right.” He pointed to where the beam DeAngelo’s earlier escape attempt had dislodged and crashed through the break in the walls. “They can’t see it from the outside—but the beam tilted the walls. If they shore up the West wall and move the South…they’ll both fall in.”

“Damn, kid,” Jack breathed, easing Mac to the other side of the room. “That brain of yours sure is something.”

Riley jumped on the radio, relaying the message that they needed to focus on the South wall—and why. Outside, Matty could hear sirens getting closer, the sound of a large truck reversing, shouts of people seemingly just on the other side of the wall. It had been so quiet for so long—they could have been the last people on Earth—to hear the commotion of actual rescue had the patrons stirring, murmuring, rising from the ground to press close to each other, staring balefully at the collapsed walls.

 _“Riley?”_ the radio squelched.

“I’m here,” Riley replied.

_“Make sure everyone is away from that supply drop area.”_

“It’s clear,” Riley reported.

All eyes except Matty’s were on the opening at the far end of the small room. She was watching Mac. The blond was conscious, but his eyes were clouded, his breath stuttering. Jack had eased him to the floor, sitting close so that Mac slumped against him. He seemed to be staring at a point across the room, but she doubted he was seeing anything _here_. His left hand curled a fist into Jack’s shirt, the grip like a lifeline. His right lay limp across his lap, the fingers there twitching at irregular intervals.

She moved to kneel next to Jack, reaching up to smooth Mac’s hair from his forehead, her motion drawing Jack’s eyes.

“You’re going to get out of here, Blondie,” she said softly. Mac blinked slowly, his eyes tracking toward the sound of her voice, his head lolling on Jack’s shoulder. “You’re going to heal up, and you’re going to get back to work. Do you hear me?”

“Matty?” Mac murmured, his brows folding slightly.

Matty smiled. “Hey there,” she greeted when his eyes finally found hers. “You got a lot more good to do in this world, Baby Einstein. So, you stick with us. That’s an order.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he murmured, blinking sluggishly.

Jack tightened his hold on Mac when the large, inflatable mattress dropped through the hole in the ceiling. The crash it made when it hit the debris inside had several people crying out and stepping back. The minute it hit the floor, Flynn, Bozer, and the young Marine were after it, pulling it into position against the South wall.

The packaged mattress was roughly half Bozer’s height and about five feet wide; it took all three men and considerable force to position it. The rescue worker on Riley’s walkie-talkie shared careful instructions on how best to ensure it supported the wall when inflated.

“We need to back up more,” Matty said, looking at the space available and the size of the inflatable. “Flynn,” she called, “get a cord or tie some table cloths together and attach it to the pull tab.”

“Why, Matty?” Bozer called back, puzzled.

“Because whoever gets the short straw to pull this thing is going to get squashed,” Flynn muttered, digging through the bench seat for an extension cord.

“Everyone else, get back,” Matty ordered. “As far as you can.”

The room seemed to move at once, bodies pressing together and against the far wall, the survivors anxious to get out, but worried for each other’s safety. Jack was already pressed against a corner, but drew Mac up closer to him, causing the young agent to suck in air at the movement.

 _“Riley?”_ called the rescue worker on the radio. _“You give me the all clear when the inflatable is open, copy?”_

“I copy,” Riley replied. She looked at Flynn, nodding.

Flynn uncoiled the extension cord, now tied to the release tab, backing up until he was level with Jack. Matty noticed that Bozer and the young Marine flanked him until they created a human wall of protection between the rest of the room and the wounded agent. She couldn’t see Mac from where she was positioned next to Riley and Leanna, but she could hear Jack’s low murmurs of comfort and reassurance.

“You guys ready to get the hell out of here?” Flynn asked, wrapping the cord once around his hand.

“Just a minute,” DeAngelo replied.

Matty blinked over at him in surprise.

“I just want to say,” he looked over toward where Ben was sitting, then up at the human wall protecting Mac and Jack, “that this has been the worst night of my life.”

“In that case,” replied the elderly gentleman, standing in the back corner, arms around his wife, her face tucked against his chest, “you’re a lucky man.”

“That’s the truth,” DeAngelo agreed, surprising Matty once again. He looked over at Flynn. “Pull that son of a bitch.”

Flynn took that as his cue and yanked on the cord. The inflatable mattress instantly triggered, filling up half the room and pressing against the South wall and part of the West due to its size.

“The mattress is in place,” Riley said into the radio.

 _“Tell everyone to cover their heads and close their eyes,”_ the rescue worker ordered. _“You ready?”_

“Ready!” Riley called back.

One hand shielding her eyes, Matty peeked out to see what appeared to be a rather giant claw cut through the cement on the West wall, clamping down and hauling the rapidly crumbling structure back and away. The noise was intense. For several minutes, she couldn’t hear her own breathing; it was simply cracking concrete and screaming metal.

But then, a huge section of the wall broke off, and fresh air poured in. She heard several of the patrons sob in relief, not having realized how stifling the air in their little cave had become.

“Stay where you are, folks!” called a voice from the exterior of the restaurant. “Need to clear away some of this debris and we can get you out of there.”

Matty dropped her hand and stepped forward, watching as a large bulldozer scraped away chunks of metal and cement, pieces of the bench seat, table tops and chairs. When the path was clear, several people dressed in firefighter gear stepped into the restaurant.

“Where can I find Riley Davis?” called a familiar female voice.

Riley stepped forward. “I’m Riley Davis.”

A slim, black woman approached, helmet missing from her gear, a wide smile on her pretty face. “Lynette Welles,” she said, holding out her hand. “L.A. County Fire Department. It’s good to finally meet you.”

Riley grinned, taking Lynette’s hand, then gave the other woman a hug. “Thank you,” she said, her voice tight. “Thank you, so much.”

Three other firefighters moved toward the patrons on the far side of the room, escorting them through the opening. Lynnette looked past Riley.

“You have an injured man?”

Riley nodded, turning to point toward where Jack held Mac against him. Flynn, Bozer, and the young Marine stepped aside.

“My friend,” she said. “He was caught in the explosion when the kitchen gas line blew.”

Two EMTs moved through the crowd of people exiting the restaurant, one carrying a first aid box, the other an orange, portable stretcher. Ben stepped forward to meet them.

“I believe he has a TBI, based on confusion and unconsciousness,” he reported. Matty was relieved when the EMTs paused to listen rather than dismiss him. “There is a deep puncture wound near the supraspinatus with a deep laceration down the bicep. He lost a lot of blood, I would estimate two liters, based on the saline input. Also…10 milligrams of morphine on board at roughly 2430.”

“What about this bruise,” asked one of the EMTs as he knelt next to Mac.

“That wasn’t from the explosion,” Ben offered, looking at Jack.

Jack cleared his throat. “He took a bullet to a Kevlar vest yesterday—wait, no two days ago. Hairline fracture to the sternum.”

“What’s his name?” asked the second EMT.

“Call him Mac,” Jack instructed.

“Mac,” the EMT repeated, leaning toward MacGyver. “I’m Nick and this is George. We’re gonna get you out of here so you can get to feeling better. Sound good?”

Mac’s eyes were lidded, but he seemed to be aware of the new voice. He blinked slowly, his fist tightening on Jack’s shirt. The EMTs left Ben’s catheter in place in the back of Mac’s hand, replacing the saline bag, then checked Mac’s pupil reaction, pulse, and blood pressure.

“BP’s 90 over 50, pulse…pulse is tachycardic,” Nick reported. “Let’s get him on the board.”

Lynnette put her hand on Matty’s shoulder. “You all can go, now.” Her eyes took in Bozer and Flynn.

“We’ll wait for him, ma’am,” the young Marine replied. “Want to make sure he gets out of here.”

Flynn nodded in agreement, and Matty watched the eyes in the room follow the sure movements of the two EMTs as they eased a Cervical collar around Mac’s neck. Nick noticed the grip Mac had on Jack’s shirt, shifting his eyes to meet Jack’s.

“Hey, bud,” Jack said softly, wrapping his hand around Mac’s slim fingers. “You gotta let go for a little bit. I’ll be right beside you the whole way.”

Mac frowned but allowed Jack to pull his hand free. The EMTs eased Mac onto the portable stretcher—the people in the room grimacing as one when the young blond groaned at the movement—and strapped him in so that his arms were crossed over his bruised chest. On a three count, both EMTs stood, lifting Mac fluidly and heading toward the opening in the restaurant. Jack followed immediately, as though tethered to his partner.

Matty looked at Bozer and Riley, nodding. They followed, joined by the young Marine. Flynn was the last man out. Matty heard him sigh, heavily.

“It was a good restaurant,” he said softly.

She patted his arm. “It will be again.”

* * *

 **Good Samaritan Hospital, Downtown Los Angeles**  
Present Day  
0400 hrs  
_Matty_

She would have preferred her team be transported to Phoenix Foundation Medical, but for the moment, she would acquiesce to the closest hospital available. Jack had ridden with Mac in one ambulance, Kira taking a second, and the elderly couple a third. Everyone else had been relegated to their own transportation—if the quake hadn’t dropped a billboard on their car, as was the case with two of the patrons—or a cab.

The property damage and devastation surrounding The Kitchen was almost unbelievable. It no longer appeared to be Los Angeles, but more of a war zone or disaster movie. Matty knew they would recover, but exiting the interior of the restaurant, greeted by rescue crews, brilliant blue and red lights, and construction machinery at two in the morning was not something easily compartmentalized.

At least by some.

She’d tried to order Riley, Leanna, and Bozer to go home and get some rest, but they refused, stubbornly insisting to join her at the hospital. They needed to know if Mac was okay as much as she did.

They found Jack in the waiting room. His blood-covered shirt had been replaced by a dark blue scrub top and he’d been able to wash the dirt and dust from his face and hands, but exhaustion and emotion lined his features and he tugged at the leather cuff on his wrist with distracted anxiety.

“Any word?” Matty asked, immediately.

Jack regarded her with exhausted eyes, but before he could say anything, another person entered the room, drawing their attention.

“I don’t believe I properly introduced myself,” said the elderly gentlemen Matty had first encountered directly after the initial quake, taking her hand politely. “My name is Richard Allen. My wife, Melissa, is resting comfortably upstairs. They decided to keep her for observation.”

“Don’t you want to be with her?” Riley asked.

Richard smiled. “Melissa and I have been through much worse than a little earthquake,” he replied. “She wanted me to get news on that young man who saved us.”

“I, uh,” the young Marine from the restaurant said from the doorway. “I kinda was hoping for the same.” He crossed the room to stand in front of Jack, saluting him. “Lance Corporal Martin Reyes,” he said. “And I…I want to thank you, Sir. For what you did.”

Jack blinked, shock plain in his expression. “I…I didn’t do anything—”

“Except carry my ass outta the world’s worst sandbox,” Henry Flynn said as he entered the room. “And keep one of the smartest men I’ve ever met alive long enough to save our hides. Just, y’know. _That_.”

Flynn held out his hand and Jack instinctively shook it, blinking back emotion as Flynn pulled him in for a tight hug.

“Don’t suppose there’s room in here for one more?”

“Holy shit,” Bozer exclaimed looking up as DeAngelo walked into the room. “I thought you’d be three counties away right now, neck deep in Merlot.”

“That makes two of us,” DeAngelo huffed. “But…as it turns out…I couldn’t _not_ know if he was okay.”

“Is there any news?” Reyes asked.

Matty looked over at Jack. They hadn’t had a chance to get that far before the rest showed up.

“Doc came out and talked to me a little while after they took him back,” Jack reported. “They’re running a bunch of scans and tests, y’know,” his hands trembled as he reached up to rub his short, spikey hair, “worried about the head wound, the cracked sternum, infection, blood loss, I mean. The works. Said it might take a while.”

His breathing had sped up as he was talking. Riley stood and settled a hand on his arm.

“How about you sit down for a minute, Jack?”

He nodded and sat carefully on the edge of one of the chairs for a fraction of a second before popping back up again, pacing.

“Jack….”

“My hands are too empty, Matty,” Jack said, his voice like a plucked guitar string. “All that time…all that time in there I felt like…like I was _literally_ holding him together.” He sat again, dropping his face into his hands, speaking from behind his fingers. “And now he’s somewhere back there and he’s confused and scared…and I’m….”

Matty stood up and crossed the room, standing directly in front of him.

“You’re exactly where you need to be,” she told him, resting a hand on his forearm. “When it comes to Mac, you’re _always_ exactly where you need to be.”

Jack dragged his hands down his face, red from emotion. He sat up slightly, looking Matty in the eye. “Not always.”

“Jack….” There were so many layers of pain in that look. So many broken pieces within this man. Irrationally, she wanted to wrap him up, hugging him hard enough all that was broken fit back together again.

“That deployment, Matty…,” he shook his head. “It was as gruesome as they come. When we got back, they checked me out, cleared me for duty, and I…I just went back to it. Back to the barracks. Back to running patrols outside the wire. Took me almost two fucking days to go see him.”

Matty listened, her expression neutral. “It was a lot for you to deal with, too. Not everyone can compartmentalize quite like our boy.”

“Yeah, well,” Jack shook his head. “He wasn’t compartmentalizing that shit. Not at first anyway. Not like he does now. He took the news of Tommy’s death…hard,” Jack’s voice tightened and Matty saw him flick a glance over her shoulder, presumably at Flynn. “He was having…bad nightmares. It was messing with his head; he wasn’t getting better, and he should have been. My CO told me they were starting to sedate him, but….”

“That just made it worse,” Flynn guessed.

Jack nodded. “I had to get special permission to stay in the infirmary. And when I got there, Matty. He…he wasn’t…he wasn’t _Mac_. Y’know?”

Matty nodded, tears burning her eyes as she listened, her gaze steady on Jack’s face.

“It wasn’t until then I realized…man, this kid had _no one_. I mean, I knew his history. I knew his mom died when he was little, and his old man bailed not long after, and his granddad died just before he joined up, but…I didn’t really get what that meant for him until _that moment_.” He rubbed the top of his head, a jaw muscle flexing. “There was no one to call. No one to send letters. No one to worry about him. _No one_.”

He sniffed glancing over at Bozer. “You were his best friend, but…you were just a kid yourself, man.”

“I know,” Bozer replied solemnly. “I was too caught up in my own shit to really be there for him. Even when he came back, I didn’t really know how to help him. What to do. Only thing that really seemed to snap him out of it was you convincing him to…y’know, take this job with you.”

Jack licked his lips. “I started hanging out in the infirmary when I wasn’t filing out some report or heading on a patrol. The more I stayed there, the more he was able to rest. The more he seemed to…to surface. It was like life had grabbed him by the ankles and just yanked down. Hard. And he was trying to get to the top. I could _see_ him trying. I could see him looking for the air. But…it was just. It was hard to breathe.”

“For both of you,” Matty commented.

Jack looked at her, then looked away, swallowing hard. “One of those nights in that infirmary, I was just sitting there. Just waiting until he was good and asleep. And I look over and I see this tear. Just one tear,” he motioned at the corner of his right eye. “It just slid from his eye and I watched it trace this path along his cheek and disappear into his hair. He wasn’t really awake, but…he wasn’t really asleep either.”

He cleared his throat, looking at the floor. Matty stepped closer, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“I knew then that when our tour was up, I was on that kid’s six for life,” he looked up, but not at Matty. Not at anything. “Wherever it took us.”

“He’s back with us now, Jack,” Matty reminded him, thinking of the late nights, the early mornings, during the months Mac had been in Nigeria, when Jack would haunt the War Room, desperate for any news. “He has a new focus and he has his family.”

“Yeah,” Jack nodded, giving her a teary smile. “Yeah, he does.”

Matty leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Jack, closing her eyes when he hugged her back. They had a complicated past, but no matter his faults, Matty would shut down anyone who dared even hint that Jack Dalton’s heart wasn’t as big as his home state of Texas.

After a bit, they all settled in to wait. Bozer got everyone coffee. Leanna fell asleep on his shoulder. Riley stretched out on the small sofa next to Jack, her feet across his lap. Flynn flipped through the same magazine over and over. Richard Allen fell asleep, head tipped back against the wall. Lance Corporal Reyes stayed on guard at the door. DeAngelo flipped through the TV channels on mute.

Almost three hours after they all arrived at the hospital, a doctor came to the room asking for the family of Angus MacGyver. Everyone stood up. The doctor blinked, but then focused as Jack stepped forward.

“I’m listed as his next of kin,” Jack said, his voice tight.

The doctor nodded. “Barring any further complications, we feel Mr. MacGyver should recover.”

Matty felt almost dizzy with relief. The room exhaled, and she heard Riley stifle a sob.

“He’s got a bit of a road ahead of him,” the doctor continued. “He has a grade 3 concussion, which will require rest and could result in some temporary memory lapses. We’ve cleaned and repaired the damage to his shoulder, and we believe we’ll be able to combat the infection with antibiotics, but he’s going to need some physical therapy to regain full motion of that arm.” The doctor sighed. “The fractured sternum caused some internal bleeding, which was putting pressure on his heart, but we were able to drain the fluid and once the bruising heals, that shouldn’t cause him further problems. Assuming he doesn’t take a bullet to a Kevlar plate again anytime soon.”

“Noted,” Matty said quietly.

“Can we see him?” Jack asked.

“He’s resting, and will be out for quite a while,” the doctor told him. “I suggest you all go home and get some rest; you can see him later tomorrow.”

“Please, Doc,” Jack implored, stepping forward. “I gotta see him.”

The doctor looked at Jack for a moment, then nodded. “But just two of you, and only for a few minutes.”

Jack’s shoulders sagged with relief. He turned to regard the room.

“Matty should go with you,” Riley declared. “We can see him tomorrow.”

Bozer and Leanna nodded in agreement. Matty looked at the others who’d joined them. Flynn stepped forward.

“Keep us posted, Dalton,” he instructed. “I want to thank the guy in person this time.”

“Same,” Reyes nodded.

Richard crossed the room and shook Jack’s hand. “It has been my sincere honor to listen to your story. You are a credit to our country, and you have redefined the word ‘brother’ for me today.”

Matty swallowed, trying in vain to keep the emotion from her expression as she saw tears swim in Jack’s eyes.

“Thank you,” Jack said, nodding once to the elderly gentleman.

DeAngelo paused as he started for the door. “Well, I don’t have anything half as great as _that_ to say, but…I do want to know how the kid is doing.”

Jack offered the man a half smile, clapping him on the shoulder. “Thanks, man.”

As everyone filed out of the waiting room, Matty and Jack followed the doctor to Mac’s room. When they entered, Matty felt herself catch her breath. The young agent looked so…so _small_ in the bed.

His head was wrapped in a clean bandage, his skin and hair now clean, bruises along his cheekbone and jaw that she’d missed under all the blood. A thick, white bandage covered his right arm from neck to wrist. He had an oxygen cannula stretched across his face and wires and leads snaking beneath the hospital gown, presumably attached to his chest.

Matty saw a heartrate monitor to the left of the bed, the sound muted, the number 84 flashing on the screen, a steady bounce of the thin green line tracking Mac’s pulse. Jack crossed immediately to the left side of the bed, stepping close and taking Mac’s hand. A new IV catheter had been inserted into his arm, the back of his left hand bandaged from where Ben had inserted the needle in the restaurant.

“Hey, bud,” Jack said softly. Mac didn’t so much as flinch. “I’m here, just like I promised.”

Matty turned to the doctor. “I believe your patient will recover much faster if you allow this man to stay with him.” She held up a hand, foreseeing the doctor’s protest. “He will not be in the way; he has, unfortunately, a bit of practice when it comes to bedside vigils. But if you want MacGyver to respond to your treatment—and heed your advice—your chances improve by a factor of 90 if he sees Jack here when he wakes up.”

The doctor regarded Matty for a long moment, then looked back to where Jack had one hip hitched up on Mac’s bed and was studying the readout on the heartrate monitor intensely.

“I’ll have a recliner brought in,” he said finally. “But he’s the only one.”

“Agreed,” Matty smiled. She crossed the room to the other side of Mac’s bed. “Try to get some rest, Jack.” He looked at her in surprise. “Remember, we need you in one piece if we’re going to get Mac back together again.”

Jack nodded, smiling softly at her. She looked at Mac, sighing.

“Oh, Blondie.”

“He’ll be okay, Matty,” Jack said quietly. “He’ll be okay, now.”

 _He’d better_ , Matty thought. Because she didn’t know what they would all do if they lost Mac.

“I know.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Good Samaritan Hospital, Downtown Los Angeles**  
Present Day  
1700 hrs  
_Jack_

Mac stirred for the first time right around the same time Jack considered leaving to grab food from the cafeteria.

He’d been sitting in the recliner the doctor brought in, positioned on the left side of Mac’s bed so that he could grab the kid’s hand if need be, legs kicked up. He’d fallen asleep twice listening to nothing but the low murmur of hospital staff outside of Mac’s door. Matty had called, Riley had called, Bozer had called, but he’d told them all to stay home. Nothing much to do here but wait.

Until the first low groan hit his ears just as he stood to stretch his aching muscles.

“Mac?”

The young agent turned his head slowly on the pillow, his lashes flickering against bruised skin as though he were fighting their weight. Jack sat on the edge of the bed, leaning an elbow on the side rail.

“Hey, bud,” he encouraged. “How about you go ahead and wake up now.”

Mac frowned, a beam of light from the setting sun breaking through the pulled curtains and painting a myriad of colors across his cheekbones.

“You know how I get if I’m left on my own too long, kid,” Jack tried, reaching up to push Mac’s bangs from his forehead. “Probably best if you just open your eyes.”

Mac’s frown deepened, and he groaned softly, turning his face slightly so that the sunbeam shifted to his throat. Jack picked up Mac’s left hand, holding it loosely in his own, watching as the weight of unconsciousness retreated and the lines around Mac’s eyes faded. The minute he saw a sliver of blue between the dark lashes, he smiled.

“There you are.”

Mac blinked sluggishly, staring at Jack for a beat, before his eyes strayed toward the sunbeam. Jack followed his eye line, watching small particles of dust dance in and out of the light. He looked back at Mac who, for the moment, seemed content to simply stare at the beam.

“Mac,” Jack squeezed his hand slightly. “You here with me, bud?”

“Descartes,” Mac whispered, his naturally-deep voice sleep-rough and thin.

Jack blinked. “Bless you.”

Mac swallowed, lifting his hand from where it rested in Jack’s and trailing his fingers through the sunbeam. “Descartes.”

On a sigh, Mac closed his eyes, his hand falling limp to the side of the bed. Jack picked it up and laid it next to him once more.

“Descartes,” Jack whispered to himself, pulling his phone out of his pocket and opening the browser window. After a few misspelling attempts, he finally pulled up something that made sense. “Oh, here we go. Réne Descartes, French philosopher and mathematician. Argued the corpus…corpus-cu-lar…corpuscular, what the hell…? Oh, particles. Well, why don’t they just say _particles_?” He looked up at Mac’s closed eyes, then back down at his phone. “Corpuscular theory of light, stating that light is made up of small particles traveling in a straight line with a finite velocity and kinetic energy.” He huffed a laugh. “Damn, kid. Always thinking, even when your marbles are scrambled.”

He sighed, taking the win that Mac had at least opened his eyes, and even if Jack didn’t understand the connections his brain was making, at least they _were_ making connections. He settled back into the recliner, turning it so that Mac was in his eyeline.

He lost track of time once more, but his stomach didn’t and just when he was about to see how much trouble he’d get in by having a pizza delivered to ICU, he heard knuckles rapping against the door frame.

“May I enter?”

Jack looked up to see Ben-Aryeh Harim pause in the doorway. He waved him in and saw to his utter delight that the man carried a take-out bag from In-And-Out Burger.

“Oh, you beautiful man,” Jack sighed, standing up and taking the bag Ben offered him. He opened the top, breathing in the scent of burgers and fries, then closed the bag, clutching it to his chest. “How’d you know?”

“Your…uh, Matty,” Ben tilted his head. “When I asked where the boy ended up, she suggested you might need some…food….” Ben blinked, stretching out the last word as he watched Jack devour one of the hamburgers in roughly four bites. “It appears she was correct.”

Jack nodded, sinking down into the recliner to finish his meal. Ben studied Mac’s face, then let his eyes drift over the readout on the machine suspended above the bed.

“Has he woken at all?”

“Once,” Jack said around a mouthful of fries. “Long enough to say something about a French philosopher and light particles, then he was out again.”

Ben chuckled. “I take it this is not unusual for him?”

Jack wiped his mouth, finishing off the fries before answering. “He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met—and I’ve met a lot of people. But he’s not just smart, he…he _remembers_ stuff. Everything. He told me once it was like his brain was filled with thousands of filing cabinets. And it doesn’t take him long to figure out…y’know, which drawer to open.” Jack balled up the empty food bag and tossed it to the waste basket. “Usually just in time to save someone’s ass. Often mine.”

“He is an extraordinary young man,” Ben nodded. His eyes drifted over Mac’s face, down the bandaged arm, and he frowned.

“What is it?” Jack asked, hyper-vigilant when it came to Mac’s condition.

“Nothing,” Ben replied, looking up at Jack. “I am just thinking about a mind such as his, and the story you shared.”

Jack nodded, standing up. He dragged a hand down his face, then rested his hands at his hips, feeling the need to square up for this conversation. “You’re talking about him hearing me.”

Ben nodded. “As his brain heals, an eidetic memory will search for an anchor. If he settles on your story, you may need to help him find his way out of it.”

“Tell me something,” Jack replied. “Why didn’t you want tell us you were Mossad?”

Ben blinked at him, going slightly pale. “Why do you think this?”

Jack shifted his weight, his eyes narrowing. “ _Where there is no guidance, a nation falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety_ ,” he quoted. “You repeated part of that motto last night after you first stabilized my boy, here.”

“It seems that your young partner is not the only one with the good memory,” Ben replied quietly.

“You said you were a Medic in the Army—Israeli Defense Forces, obviously,” Jack tipped his head. “But you’re more than that, aren’t you?”

“I was, once,” Ben nodded. “But I am no longer that person. We live many lives in one lifetime. Some of them we want to forget quickly, others we hold onto with desperation.”

“And I’m guessing being a line cook in an L.A. restaurant is…?”

“The latter,” Ben replied softly.

Jack watched the other man for a moment, thinking of the different people he’d encountered as a soldier, during his time in the CIA, with DXS and now with the Phoenix. So many fit the description Ben had offered. Jack was clear which part of his life he wanted to forget and which he was holding onto with desperation. He wondered about Mac….

“Take him....” Mac’s rough voice startled Jack out of his musing.

He jumped, turning to see the young agent’s face folded into a frown of anguish, the bandage wrapped around his forehead bunching as Mac tossed his head.

“ _Please_ , Jack….”

“Hey, bud,” Jack leaned forward, ignoring Ben’s proximity for the moment. All that mattered was the wrecked emotion he heard bleeding through Mac’s tone. “Easy, kiddo. You’re okay.”

Mac opened his eyes wide, the blue almost eaten away by the black, his pupils blown so wide. Jack had to wonder what they had him on. Mac gasped, reaching for Jack, catching the man’s leather cuff with the edges of his fingertips as Jack instinctively reached back.

“We gotta get him outta here, Jack,” he said, desperation turning his breath thin. “He’s not going to make it.”

Jack felt his heart clench. _Tommy_. When Mac had been recovering in the infirmary back at the Kandahar base, he’d gotten confused multiple times about whether he’d gotten Tommy out of that makeshift barricade. It had taken Jack almost two full days to anchor him in the here and now.

“It’s okay, Mac,” Jack soothed, hitching a hip on the edge of the bed, and allowing Mac more room to grab onto his arm. “You got him out of there. You did real good.”

Mac shook his head. “He’s bleedin’ bad, Jack. You gotta help him.” He pulled on Jack’s arm, leveraging himself up in the bed, gasping helplessly as the motion pulled at his bruised chest. “The…the RPG—”

“No RPG, Mac,” Jack reassured him, gripping Mac’s elbow loosely as the kid’s long fingers climbed his arm in his desperation. “You’re safe. You’re in Los Angeles, in a hospital. And I’m right here. Right here with you.”

But Mac was adamant. He shook his head, practically upright in his conviction that something was wrong. The readout on his heartrate monitor started to flash in the corner of Jack’s eyes, the steady spikes and valley’s increasing until there were only spikes.

Mac’s right arm rested, useless, in his lap. The fingers on his left hand clawed forward until he was gripping Jack’s bicep, anchoring himself. His blue eyes were pinned to Jack’s face, imploring. Practically _begging_ him to act. To do _something_ that stopped the nightmare he could still see, vivid and in technicolor, to this day.

“He’s…he’s _hurting_ , Jack,” Mac tried, his voice trembling and Jack felt a sob build in his chest as Mac’s eyes filled with tears. “He’s…God, he’s so _young_.”

“He was your age,” Jack remembered, choking back his emotion. “And he didn’t deserve to die like that.”

Mac’s breath hitched, a tear spilling over, skipping and skittering down his cheek. Jack couldn’t tear his eyes away, watching as it slid along Mac’s jaw and disappeared. Choked gasps for breath pulled at Mac’s shoulders and his blue eyes seemed to glow with emotion.

“He’s gone.” It more of a statement than a question.

Jack nodded. “Yeah, bud. He’s gone. You got him out of there, though.”

“But I didn’t save him.” Mac’s voice trembled, cracking and breaking over the last word.

Jack shook his head, his lips folding and flattening as he tried to keep the tears at bay, remembering having this same conversation seven years ago, with a much younger, much more-broken MacGyver.

“You tried, kid. Goddamn,” he exhaled, dragging a hand down his face. “You tried so hard.”

“Mac,” Ben stepped forward and Mac’s eyes tracked slowly toward the new voice, pulling his lips against his teeth as he tried to steady his breathing. “I have seen what happens when families are not united with their loved ones. You gave Tommy’s family that gift.”

As Mac stared at Ben, Jack felt the kids’ fingers tighten on his bicep almost painfully. He realized suddenly that Mac had no idea who Ben was—he’d been unconscious for most of the man’s ministrations.

“Mac, this is Ben,” he introduced the Medic. “He helped me keep you in one piece after the earthquake.”

Mac looked back over at Jack, his blue eyes young and scared. “Earthquake?”

Jack nodded. “You remember the restaurant? Matty’s special mission?”

Mac shook his head slowly, his eyes dropping to his lap, then tracing up the thick bandages on his arm. Slowly, with the grace of the Tin Man after a night out in the rain, he released Jack’s arm, his trembling hand going up to the bandage on his head. He touched the thickest part with tentative fingers.

“Flynn….”

Jack nodded. “Yeah, Flynn was there,” he confirmed. “Turns out it was his place, remember? And you saved him, kid. You got him out of the kitchen. You saved us all, man.”

Mac frowned, pressing the heel of his hand against the bridge of his nose. “It’s…it’s all messed up.”

“What is?” Jack asked softly.

“We’re home?” Mac looked up at him, his voice going young, his eyes filled with tears.

Jack nodded. “We’re home, kid.”

“And you didn’t leave me….”

Jack sniffed, losing the war with his emotions. “I didn’t leave you.”

Mac closed his eyes. “ _Fuck_ , my head hurts,” he breathed.

“Wanna lie back?”

Mac nodded, and Jack cupped the back of head, easing him back against the pillows. Just as he was about to pull his hand away, Mac reached up to grab his wrist. “I don’t remember….”

“What don’t you remember, bud?”

“I don’t remember leaving…leaving that street. I remember Tommy. I remember you. But I don’t remember…leaving.”

Jack was still bent over Mac, his hand at the back of the blonde’s neck. “The Kiowa landed. I got you on it. They got us out of there.”

“The Kiowa,” Mac exhaled, blinking heavily. “Warrior in the sky.”

Jack sniffed, resting his forehead gently against Mac’s. “Warrior in the sky.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

“I got you, kid.”

After a moment, Jack felt the tension in Mac’s neck ease and he lifted his head, seeing his partner’s eyes were closed. He waited another beat, then, confident that Mac was asleep, he straightened up and pulled his hand away.

“He is lucky to have you,” Ben commented softly.

Jack shook his head. “You got it backwards,” he said, clearing his throat. “Before he and I met, everyone who was supposed to be there for this kid left him—one way or another.” He glanced up at Ben. “I’ve seen what that does to people. I’ve seen how it makes them hard. Makes them mean.” He looked back down at Mac. “But not him. He’s the most selfless person I know.”

Ben nodded. “I will leave you with him.”

“Hey,” Jack moved around the end of the bed, holding out a hand to the former Medic. “Thank you, man. For everything you did.”

Ben shook his hand. “You are welcome.”

“I know that couldn’t have been easy, going back to that place where you knew how to do all that, but…,” he glanced at Mac, “if you hadn’t, I don’t know if we’d be here right now.”

“It was my honor,” Ben replied sincerely. “Get some rest.”

Jack nodded, watching the man leave, thinking about the people Mac had impacted in that restaurant without even realizing it. People he didn’t even know. People he may never see again. People who would never forget him.

Sighing, his belly full, his heart sore, Jack sat back in the recliner, easing it back. He was so tired his eyeballs ached. He didn’t know how long Mac might sleep, but he knew that if he didn’t get some shut-eye, he wasn’t going to be able to anchor the kid through another scene like that.

Head tilted toward Mac’s bed, he let himself sink into sleep.

He woke briefly at shift change when two nurses came in to check Mac’s vitals, one of them covering Jack with a warmed blanket. It was dark outside, he knew. The room had the sort of hushed feeling that came with night. As if everyone talked softer, walked slower, in deference to the missing light.

He woke again when the doctor made his rounds, murmuring to his nurse words that Jack couldn’t begin to follow. Blearily, he realized they were changing the dressing on Mac’s shoulder and arm. He sat up a bit higher in the chair, wincing as he watched the old bandage pulled away, the stitches—so many of them—now visible.

That was going to add an impressive scar to Mac’s collection.

He caught sight of Mac’s face, pulled low into a pained frown. The doctor and nurse were focused on their task, cleaning and rewrapping Mac’s arm from shoulder to elbow. When Mac mumbled something, Jack leaned forward, reaching out his hand to wrap his fingers around Mac’s left wrist.

“Can’t...feel anything,” Mac muttered. “Can’t feel….”

The nurse looked up sharply at that, and the doctor began checking the machines. But Jack knew the kid wasn’t talking about physical pain. Not this time.

It had been the same seven years ago, in that infirmary in Kandahar: for a while, Mac had gone numb. It had terrified him— _both_ of them, if Jack were honest with himself. He’d known it was a defense mechanism, a way of retreating from the impact of loss, a way of healing. But the panic in Mac’s eyes had been too much for Jack and he’d found a way to grab Mac from that particular edge, haul him back—tear stained and gasping—into the land of sensation.

“Yes, you can,” Jack said softly, surprising the two others in the room. The doctor met Jack’s eyes, watching as Jack tightened his gentle grip on Mac’s arm. “You _can_ feel, kid.”

Mac’s brows knitted together, and he rolled his head toward Jack’s voice.

“Don’t want to….”

“I know,” Jack sighed. “But it’ll get easier.”

The lines around Mac’s eyes deepened, somehow aging him and turning him young all at once.

“How?”

And with that word, Jack knew Mac was hovering in the in-between: not awake, but not really asleep, either. It was the restless middle ground Mac often held himself in when the nightmares were too much, but he was too tired to wake. It wore on him, leaving bruising evidence under his eyes and sending his hands into an edgy pattern of motion.

Jack slid his grip from Mac’s wrist to his hand, wrapping Mac’s cold fingers into his own, warming them, bracing them.

“Every day is a mission,” Jack said, remembering Worthy’s words as clearly as if the man were standing at his shoulder. “And with each mission, it gets easier.”

Mac’s fingers flexed around Jack’s hand. “Promise?”

“I promise you, kid,” Jack nodded, mostly for himself, to cement the oath. “And I don’t break my promises.”

Mac’s eyes blinked open, staring right at Jack with such trust the other man felt his heart clench like a fist in his chest.

“I know,” Mac said, face tight with the exact pain he wanted to hide from.

The doctor readied a syringe and administered medication into Mac’s IV line. Slowly, ever so slowly, the lines of tension on Mac’s face eased, his eyes drifting closed until the kid was relaxed once more. His fingers went lax in Jack’s hand. The doctor nodded toward Jack, then he and the nurse left the room.

That time, Jack slept _hard_.

And the day caught up with him.

Images and memories chased him through the dark, swapping reality with dread. Planting Mac’s face on Gates’ destroyed body, on Tommy as a bullet shattered his spine. Blowing up the suicide vest in Mac’s hands, blowing Mac up in the earthquake-damaged kitchen, suffocating Mac with nitrogen as he writhed in Jack’s arms.

Over and over, he saw the kid suffer, watched him die. Held him as he shook, as he begged, as his back arched with pain and his blue eyes sought Jack’s looking for salvation, for rescue, for a promise kept.

Over and over, Jack was too late, wasn’t enough. And he felt it every time Mac died.

As though pushing up from the bottom of a deep lake, Jack forced himself to wake, pressing forward, grabbing for air. Sweat ran down the sides of his face, plastering the blue scrub top to his chest and the valley of his spine. Panicked gasps battered the thin air around him; he couldn’t get enough. The harder he tried, the less there was, and the room was tunneling around him.

“Jack!”

He knew that voice. He knew it better than he knew his own. He _listened_ for it.

“Hey, easy big guy.”

A hand was on his face, on his neck, holding him, steadying him.

“Jack, hey, look at me.”

 _Mac_. It was Mac he was hearing. He forced himself to track to the voice, finding the bruised eyes and bandage head much closer than he realized.

“Hey,” Mac’s smile was tremulous, but his eyes were pinned to Jack. “Just breathe. It’s okay. I’m right here. I’m okay.”

He tried, but he couldn’t stop seeing those blue eyes dim and close, taking with them all the light in Jack Dalton’s world. He felt Mac’s hand press a bit into his neck, the kid’s long fingers curling around the base of his skull.

“C’mon, Jack. Just one easy breath.”

Jack blinked at him, eyes stinging from the sweat that tented his lashes. _One easy breath_. It was how he coaxed Mac out of a panic attack, how he brought the kid back to center, how he kept him balanced.

“You can do it. With me,” Mac continued, handing him back his own words. Showing him that he was heard, that he was needed.

That they were a team.

He watched Mac’s face, pulling in a slow breath, then another. After a few beats, he felt his pulse slow from its _cheetah-on-speed_ rate to a steady rhythm, his breath beginning to even out.

Only then did he realize that they were both on the floor, the oxygen cannula that had been around Mac’s face, gone. The leads and IV lines tethering Mac to the bed were stretched to their limit. Jack was on his knees, his hands braced on the cold, linoleum floor. Mac’s bandaged right arm was held tightly against him, but his left was still gripping Jack’s neck. His bare legs were tucked under him, the hospital gown pooling on the floor around his knees.

With a trembling sigh, Jack felt himself sink, his head falling forward, forehead resting on Mac’s left shoulder. He just need to feel the warmth, the _life_ there. Mac’s hand slid from his neck to his back, pulling him a bit closer, holding him, bracing him.

 “’m okay, kid,” Jack said after several beats, his voice grating against the air. He forced himself to straighten up, settling back on his heels. Breathing. “I’m good.”

“Yeah?” Mac asked, blue eyes searching his. “You sure?”

Jack nodded. “Let’s get you back up in that bed before you set of an alarm somewhere.”

“Wait,” Mac said quietly, the hand that had never left Jack’s shoulder tightening its grip. “I don’t…,” he swallowed and looked furtively over his shoulder before returning his eyes to Jack. “Where are we?”

Jack pushed up on his knees, forcing Mac’s hand to fall back to his lap. He gained his feet, then leaned over to gently collect Mac against him and help the other man to his feet. Mac was weak, gripping Jack with his left hand, unable to keep his balance. Jack imagined the kid basically fell out of the bed to his knees when Jack woke him because of the nightmare.

Grunting from the effort, Mac tried to slide back onto his pillows, but needed Jack’s help to arrange the collection of wires and tubing, both wincing as he adjusted his catheter. After so many hospital stays, however, modesty wasn’t something either man worried much about. Jack helped ease the oxygen back over Mac’s head as the kid plucked anxiously at Jack’s black wrist cuff.

“This isn’t Kandahar, is it?”

Jack shook his head. “No, kid,” he sighed. “It’s L.A.”

“L.A.,” Mac nodded, eyes clearer as he looked around the room. “But not…not the Phoenix.”

Jack almost whooped that he’d remembered where they work.

“We’re at Good Sam, downtown,” he glanced over his shoulder at the slightly parted curtain, surprised to see sunlight streaming through once more. He looked at the clock across the room. “And it’s 0800.”

Mac shifted in the bed, pulling his bandaged arm closer to him. “Why do I keep thinking we’re downrange?”

The fact that he’d automatically referred to their time deployed in Afghanistan with a soldier’s lingo had Jack tilting his head.

“You remember the restaurant?” Jack asked, pulling the blanket up to Mac’s chest, then settling himself at the foot of the bed. Mac automatically curled one leg under the other, making room for Jack.

Mac narrowed his eyes, staring at Jack but the other man could tell he wasn’t really seeing him.

“Flynn’s restaurant,” Mac said quietly.

Jack nodded. “There was an earthquake.”

“You've said this a few times before, haven't you?” Mac asked, rubbing his bandaged head gingerly.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jack shook his head, waving a dismissive hand. “I’ll tell you forty times a day, if I need to.”

“It was before the restaurant, though,” Mac muttered.

“What was?”

For several beats, Mac was quiet. This time when he looked at Jack, the other man felt the intensity of his gaze. And it made Jack feel as though he were made of glass.

“It was Worthy,” Mac said.

Jack brought his chin up but didn’t say anything. He was starting to feel hollowed out. As if with each word, Mac removed piece of him.

“He re-upped, went back to the life. You said…you said you never would,” Mac spoke slowly, as if selecting each word from a box full of thorns. “But you never said why.”

“Why what?” Jack voice sounded strangled in his own ears.

“Why you wouldn’t go back,” Mac continued, tensing as though bracing for a punch. “Why you…wouldn’t leave me.”

“Aw, hell, kid,” Jack looked away, emotion sitting like a football at the base of his throat. He dragged his hands down his cheeks, feeling the stubble of two days’ growth rasp against callouses worn onto his fingers by time and circumstance. “You know how hard it was for me when you were gone?”

This time, Mac was quiet.

“Not being able to check in on you, make sure you were okay?” Jack shook his head, pushing to his feet. He felt restless, as if every muscle in his body was twitching at once. He shoved his fingers up through his buzzed hair, his short mohawk rubbing against the palm of his hand. “And I don’t just mean…in one piece _physically_. I could see that for myself on the satellite images.”

“In a totally, non-stalkery way,” Mac teased softly. Jack ignored him.

“I mean, up here,” he tapped at his own temple. “Where you’re carrying all those…those demons.”

Mac swallowed, looking down. Listening.

“Kid, you compartmentalize better than any soldier I’ve met,” Jack said, rotating at the end of the bed, leaning forward with both hands braced on the foot-board. “A helluva lot better than me, that’s for damn sure.”

“I don’t know…,” Mac said quietly. “You’re pretty good at fooling people into thinking you’re okay.”

Jack plowed forward. “But I _know you_. I know how those bad dreams twist you up inside. How you’d do just about anything—like running twenty miles when it’s a hundred degrees out, and don’t tell me you haven’t done that—”

“I won’t.”

“—just to get them to quiet down. And when you were gone, man,” Jack shook his head, hanging it low until he felt the burn of stretched muscles along his neck. “I had no way to know how close you were to the edge. If you needed me to pull you back.” Jack took a slow breath. “And if I was going to let you down.”

“Jack….”

Jack looked up, seeing that Mac had slumped, exhausted from the effort of moving, of staying awake, back against the pillows.

“Ben said something interesting to me yesterday,” Jack told him, his voice pitched low and contemplative. “He said we live many lives in one lifetime. Some of them we want to forget quickly, others we hold onto.” Jack shook his head slowly, regarding his partner. “I guess I just don’t want to be part of the life you want to forget.”

Mac frowned. “Who’s Ben?”

Jack smiled sadly. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Look, Jack,” Mac shifted up in the bed slightly. “I know my head’s a mess right now. And I know Gottfried Leibniz would have a field day with my current sense of time—”

Jack started chuckling.

“What?” Mac frowned, looking genuinely puzzled.

“Nothing, kid,” Jack pushed away from the bed, moving to sit at the foot once more. “Just…I think you forget sometimes that not everyone has a Wikipedia of physicists and mathematicians in their noggin.”

Mac looked down, cradling his bandaged right arm. “Oh. Right,” he took a slow breath. “Anyway, all I was trying to say is that…,” he looked up, his blue eyes hitting Jack like a sunbeam, “You never let me down. Not once, in all the time I’ve known you. You’re…,” he closed his eyes briefly, then forced them open. “You’re the only one in my life who hasn’t. And…I’m _always_ going to need you. No matter where I am—or where you are. You’re…you’re my anchor.”

Jack’s smile was hesitant and confused. “Like I drown you?”

Mac shook his head. “No, the opposite,” he said softly. “You keep me from…getting lost inside my head. You remind me I’m not alone. You’re the reason I’m still here, man.”

Jack crossed his arms over his chest, shrugging. “You give me too much credit.”

“Actually,” Mac sighed sinking a bit against the pillows. “I don’t think I’ve given you enough. Not in Afghanistan, and definitely not afterwards.” He gave Jack a half-grin, exposing his dimple, and Jack felt his heart flip over at the youth and innocence he saw there. A quality that had been missing since Mac found out the truth about his father.

“I didn’t really say it that well before…when your Delta team was here, but…I was wrong. I never should have gone dark on you. Not because it wasn’t…wasn’t _cool_. But…,” Mac swallowed, looking up, grabbing Jack’s eyes with his own, “because I needed you Jack. I’ll always need you. I mean it. No matter where we are in the world.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jack smiled softly.

“I mean it,” Mac stressed.

“I know, bud.”

They sat in silence for a bit, until Jack heard his stomach growl loud enough it triggered a tired chuckle from Mac.

“Go,” he said, blinking slowly. “Find food.”

“You going to be okay?” Jack asked.

“Man, I can barely keep my eyes open,” Mac confessed.

Jack sighed, pushing up from the bed. “I’m going to have to hit the resent button again when you wake up anyway,” he commented. “I know you and concussions. Ancient physicists you remember. Recent events? Not so much.”

Mac gave him a sleepy smile. “That’s why you’re here.”

Jack smiled, thinking of another time, another place when Mac had said the same thing to him, with just as much belief and conviction. Recognizing how the feeling of obligation and responsibility swooped through him, turning his gut to ice and lighting his heart on fire. Grateful that Mac still felt the truth of those words with as much certainty now as he had then.

“Get some sleep, kid,” Jack said, resting a hand on his bent leg. “I’ll be back.”

Jack called Matty when he was in the cafeteria, giving her a report. She let him know that Oversight had been asking for hourly updates.

“He wants updates, he can damn well come down here and get them himself,” Jack growled.

Matty didn’t contradict the sentiment; instead she let him know that others had also been asking about Mac and wanted to visit. Jack told her to have them come the next day—Mac was just starting to get his equilibrium back. He didn’t want to toss it sideways too soon.

When he returned to the room, he found Mac asleep, but some of the wires and tubing that had been in place when he left were now gone. The kid looked half-way to normal, except for the bandage around his head and right arm. Jack sank into the recliner and grabbed his phone to distract himself.

He was asleep before he pulled up his Twitter page.

One night, two dressing changes, four new IVs, and an assisted walk around the hospital floor later, Mac was sitting up in his bed with a bandage over the twenty-seven stitches in the scalp laceration—gauze no longer wrapped around his head—and his bandaged right arm in a sling. Jack could see the line of headache pain between his eyes, but he could also see how bright those eyes were as he watched and listened to the banter between his friends—his _family_ —as they gathered around the bed.

“…my Super-Soaker from when we were twelve, you remember that?”

Mac half-grinned as a response. Jack couldn’t tell if he _actually_ remembered or was simply humoring Bozer. He wanted to believe the former, but it was really anyone’s guess at this point.

“Anyway, I channeled my inner MacGyver—”

“Dude,” Riley protested, holding up a hand in Bozer’s direction. “Never. Say that. Again.”

“—and helped build a stethoscope. It was totally fist-bump worthy,” Bozer declared, holding out his left fist toward Mac, who obliged with a grin.

“It’s good to see you awake,” Riley told Mac, smiling. “You had us scared.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Mac said, sincerely. “I honestly don’t…,” he glanced at Jack, who was still sitting in the recliner, arms crossed comfortably over his chest. “I don’t remember much.”

“What _do_ you remember?” Matty asked.

Mac looked down. “I remember Belize,” he said. “The bank and the booby-trapped safety deposit box.”

“And…?” Matty prompted.

Mac’s eyes darted back and forth, clearly searching for a clear memory. “After that…it’s…,” he huffed, frustrated. “It’s kind of like I jumped back to Kandahar.”

“Time travel without a DeLorean,” Bozer commented. “Cool.”

“In no reality should the words ‘Kandahar’ and ‘cool’ be in that close proximity,” Mac teased, one eyebrow raised.

“My bad,” Bozer lifted a hand, but smiled at his friend.

“Doc said I might get out of here tomorrow,” Mac said, his eyes tracking to Matty.

Matty gave him a side smile. “We’ll see, Blondie. _Whenever_ it is, you’re on leave for at least two weeks.”

“Two?” Mac’s eyebrows bounced up, followed by a wince that had him pressing gentle fingers against his temple. “I thought I had to at least get shot for time like that.”

“My guess is,” Jack grumbled, his chin to his chest, eyes on Matty, “our fearless leader had to fight for that long.”

Matty gave him a narrow-eyed glance. “You’re not wrong,” she replied. “Still, assigning agents _is_ under my purview,” she glanced at Mac, who lifted his chin as though hearing something familiar, “so you’ll go on mission when I say it’s time.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mac replied, subdued.

“You up for a few more visitors?” Riley asked from the doorway.

Mac frowned. “More?” he asked. “Everyone I know is here.”

Riley grinned and pulled the curtain back. Henry Flynn walked into the small room.

“Flynn,” Mac smiled, eyes lighting up. “You okay?”

Flynn reached out a left hand to shake Mac’s free hand, a grin at home on his face, his blue eyes dancing. “Thanks to you,” he said. “Again.”

Mac released his hand, glancing down. “I don’t, uh….”

“Yeah, Jack said you were having a little trouble putting the pieces together,” Flynn said. “That’s why I brought a couple folks with me.”

Flynn turned to the doorway and lifted his chin. As he did so, a tall, thin black man in a tailored business suit entered the room, a small box in his hand. Jack sucked in a breath, pushing to his feet, his eyes darting to Mac, then back to the man. Mac’s eyebrows folded as he studied the new face.

“Specialist MacGyver,” the man greeted, his voice a low rumble of sound that seemed to bounce to every corner of the room. “Seven years ago, you saved my life. And I never got to thank you.”

Mac swallowed. “Willis?”

Scott Willis nodded, a smile flashing brilliant white teeth. “I was hoping you’d remember. Flynn told me about the restaurant and the earthquake,” he glanced over at Jack, nodding a greeting, “and I remembered something.”

Mac’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, his eyes pinned to Willis’ face.

“I remembered how you made us all feel safe, even when you were scared to death,” Willis said. “And I remembered how you saved our asses with a goddamn paperclip.” He handed the box to Mac.

Jack watched Mac’s hand tremble as he reached out to take the box from Willis, tearing off the brown paper with blunted fingernails. Inside was a small Office Depot box filled with paperclips.

Mac smiled. “I remember,” he said softly.

“I never got to say thank you,” Willis told him. “I got two kids now. A boy and a girl. And they’re…amazing,” he chuckled with a shy grin. “They’re amazing, man. And they wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”

Mac looked up at Willis. “Congratulations,” he said, a genuine smile on his face. “Really, I’m happy for you.”

Willis stepped back next to Bozer and looked over at the curtain. Flynn pulled it aside and Jack grinned when he saw Lance Corporal Reyes, DeAngelo, and Richard Allen step through, standing side-by-side. Mac looked at them, puzzled, no recognition on his face.

“Young man,” Richard started. “I don’t imagine you know us, but we were three people you saved a few days ago with your quick thinking in that restaurant.”

A muscle flexed in Mac’s jaw and Jack saw surprise in his blue eyes as he looked at the elderly gentleman.

“Dude, your Overwatch told us what you did downrange,” Reyes spoke up. “I’ve been there, man. I know. I know what it’s like, that…that constant… _unknowing_ ,” he bounced a bit on the balls of his feet. “And what you did—not just that one day, but every day. Checking the roads for IEDs, watching out for our asses, man. Thank you.”

Jack felt a lump build in his throat as he listened, watching as tears built in Mac’s eyes. DeAngelo was last, but there was something about the way the smarmy businessman was dressed—blue polo shirt, jeans, New Balance sneakers—that made him appear almost approachable.

“I didn’t even want to be there,” DeAngelo confessed. “If you’ll believe it, I was on a fucking blind date, only she never showed.” He shrugged. “Who the hell knows—maybe the earthquake saved me from a fate worse than death.”

Riley coughed subtly into her fist.

“Point is,” DeAngelo sighed, clasping his hands behind his back. His eyes darting around the room, looking anywhere but at Mac. “Ever since you got yourself blown up saving the rest of us, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what you did. And why you did it. Then this guy,” he gestured with the flat of his hand toward Jack, “goes on about how you saved four soldiers doing shit I would _never_ have the balls to do myself, and…, well,” he cleared his throat. “You gave me a lot to think about.” DeAngelo looked directly at Mac. “No one’s done that in a lotta years, so…yeah. Thank you, kid.”

Jack looked over at Mac, one part of him wanting to laugh at the pure shock and overwhelm he saw there, the other part wanting to wrap him up and help him crawl into a cave protecting him from the emotions he was clearly having trouble processing.

The silence seemed to mock them as Mac worked to find his voice.

“I…I don’t,” Mac swallowed hard. “I didn’t do anything—”

“If you’re about say you didn’t do anything someone else wouldn’t have done, I’m going to have to stop you right there,” Flynn spoke up. “Because it’s just not true, pal. So…take the win.”

Mac nodded, but Jack could see his throat working. He looked toward Jack, a tear spilling from its precarious perch on the edge of his lashes and bouncing down his cheekbone.

“What do I say?” he asked, his voice cracking.

“How about…you’re welcome?” Jack offered with a soft smile.

Mac looked back toward the room, his eyes sliding over his team, resting on Flynn and Willis, then skipping over the three new faces he hadn’t had the chance to meet until now. Jack saw another tear bounce free.

“You’re welcome,” he said, his voice strangled. “But…no matter what Flynn says, I didn’t…all I wanted to do was keep you alive.”

Richard stepped forward, patting Mac gently on the leg. “Mission accomplished, my boy.”

Mac’s cheeks bounced up in a surprised smile, nodding back at the elderly man as Richard left the room. DeAngelo followed, offering Mac a closed fist, which Mac obliged with a bump. Next, Reyes, Flynn, and Willis stood at attention and saluted Mac. Jack saw Riley and Bozer’s chins come up in reaction.

He knew Mac wouldn’t be able to lift his right arm to return the salute. Mac nodded sharply in reply, looking each soldier in the eye. Reyes and Willis headed out, Flynn on their heels.

“Flynn,” Mac called, stopping him. Flynn turned to regard Mac solemnly. “I know Tommy was in your unit,” Mac began, his voice choked with emotion. “And…I’m…I’m so sorry, I wasn’t able to save—”

“Mac,” Flynn interrupted, a hand resting on Mac’s leg, stopping him. “You saved him from being a weapon. You saved him from killing all of us. You saved him from terror and pain and fear. And you made sure he came home. You did everything humanly possible. You have _nothing_ to be sorry for.”

Mac’s tears slid silently from bright eyes, tucking beneath his jawline and sliding down his throat. He nodded his thanks and Flynn shifted his eyes to Jack for a moment before stepping from the room.

“We’ll let you get some rest,” Matty declared. “I expect to see you home in twenty-four hours, Blondie.”

Mac nodded quickly, unable to form words.

“Feel better, man,” Bozer said, tapping the foot of the bed. “I’ll have some burgers waiting for you.”

“I’ll tell you all about how I used your 911 hack for another mission when you get home,” Riley promised with a grin.

They all glanced at Jack as they filed out, Matty the last to leave, casting a look at Jack, her eyes holding a paragraph. When the door shut behind them, Jack heard Mac’s breath catch on a sob. He hitched his hip to sit on the edge of the bed, eyes on his friend’s bent head.

With a sigh the skittered out as though his lungs were covered in sandpaper, Mac lifted his bruised eyes, meeting Jack’s with a look that was stripped bare of pretense and devoid of protection. There was so much raw hope and real pain in that look, Jack felt his breath catch. The tears that had been lurking since the moment the men saluted Mac burned through any shield he’d had against them and his eyes filled.

“Mac?”

“Jack, how do we just—” Mac tried in a voice both young and old and so weary it made Jack feel heavy.

Jack shook his head, unable to speak around the pain of loss, of memories, of _what ifs_ and _if onlys_. The grip of emotion that had wrapped around him since he watched Mac stumble out of the bank in Belize days ago, slowly tightening each day since, seemed to suddenly release and he was overwhelmed. Helpless to do anything else, Jack reached out to gently pull Mac forward, one hand cupping the back of the kid’s head, the other wrapped across his back. He tucked Mac’s face into his shoulder and simply held on while their shoulders shook from silent tears.

For those lost, for those living, for the nightmares, the memories, and for all the lifetimes they wanted to forget.

* * *

 **The Phoenix Foundation**  
Present Day  
1300 hrs  
_Matty_

It seemed that traumatic brain injuries overruled even the Director of the Phoenix Foundation.

The doctors at Good Samaritan mandated that Mac pass a series of cognitive and physical tests before releasing them—chief among them being able to walk one lap around the hospital floor unaided, without getting dizzy. This feat took Mac two more days to accomplish. Jack stayed with him the entire time, texting or calling Matty with regular updates—and ignoring every. single. one. of her orders to come in and report to Oversight.

If she didn’t agree with him so completely, she’d write him up for insubordination.

As Mac slowly healed, his memories came back—disjointed and out of order, but he began to recall more about the mission in Belize, the reason for the massive bruise across his chest, the cause of the ache in his joints. Jack updated her on the fact that Mac had a 25% chance to have another seizure due to the severe concussion sometime in the next few months, and Matty sighed, knowing before he even said it that Jack was going to demand he be kept in close contact with his partner because of this possibility.

“You do understand that Mac is a grown man, Dalton,” Matty groused at him in reply. “A very capable, grown man.”

 _“I’m not arguing with you about this, Matilda,”_ Jack shot back. _“I don’t care if you need to put it in writing so Oversight agrees to it. Until we’re sure he’s solid, no more of these one-off missions.”_

“Or what?” Matty challenged, mostly just to hear what Jack would say.

 _“Or we walk,”_ Jack replied without missing a beat.

“We?” Matty queried. “You think Mac will walk away from finding Murdoc? Putting him away for what he did to Jill?”

 _“We don’t need the Phoenix to do that,”_ Jack reminded her. _“It’s easier, sure, but not necessary.”_

Matty had to give him that point. “You’d do it, too, wouldn’t you?”

_“If it means keeping this kid in one piece, you bet your ass I would.”_

Leaving her agreement unsaid, Matty shifted gears.

“You said he’s remembering more?”

Jack’s sigh through the phone was so deep she could almost see his shoulders bowing. _“Yeah…and I almost wish he couldn’t,”_ he confessed. _“Earlier when he woke up, he remembered getting those guys out of the kitchen and putting that DIY bomb together to stop the gas line from exploding. It was like…watching a burn victim remember what it was like to catch on fire.”_

Matty pressed her lips together, eyes darting to the other person in the War Room as she processed what Jack told her.

 _“It’s going to take him a bit to get back to himself, Matty,”_ Jack told her.

“We’ll get him there,” Matty assured him. “All of us.”

 _“Copy that,”_ Jack agreed.

Hanging up, Matty took a slow breath, then returned James MacGyver’s steely gaze.

“I notice you didn’t order him to come in and report,” the elder MacGyver stated.

Matty tilted her head. “I didn’t believe it was necessary. I was able to get a satisfactory read on your…on Agent MacGyver’s condition this way.”

“All due respect, Director Webber,” James stepped forward and Matty saw his hands curl into fists at his sides. “You weren’t asked what you believed. You were _ordered_ to bring Agent Dalton in for questioning.”

Matty stood up, walked over to her boss, her face set in stone. “If what you’re looking for is to see how Mac’s really doing, there is a simple solution.” She leaned forward and enunciated each word, “Go to the hospital yourself.”

James shook his head. “He doesn’t want to—”

“Oh, bullshit,” Matty scoffed, turning away. “You’re unbelievable, James.”

James blinked in surprise. “I’m not sure I appreciate your tone.”

“I’m not sure I care,” Matty climbed up onto the couch, the bowl of paper clips catching her eye. “What were you looking for on those recordings?”

James tilted his head, tugging at his slacks as he sank down in the chair opposite her. “Recordings?”

Matty lifted an eyebrow. “Do you do this on purpose, or do you honestly forget that I was _ordered_ to study everything about you for the last fourteen years?”

James sighed. “I wanted to get some idea of what’s going on in my son’s head,” he confessed. “I asked Riley to run an algorithm for certain trigger words.”

“Such as…?”

“Sandbox, downrange, leave, need,” James looked down at his hand, rubbing distractedly at his left ring finger, even though his wedding ring had been gone for over a decade. “Jack.”

Matty kept her expression neutral as she processed the fact that he considered ‘Jack’ a trigger word. Knowing what was on the latest recordings, she braced herself for the answer to her next question.

“And what did your assessment yield?”

James narrowed his eyes at her. “My son…is a damn good agent.”

“Your son could use about a year of therapy,” Matty offered. “To help him deal with his abandonment issues alone.”

James brought his chin up. “Seems to me he’s dealing just fine.”

Matty shook her head looking away. “And yet…you can’t bring yourself to go visit him in the hospital.”

“He has Jack,” James reminded her.

“He _should_ have you,” Matty returned.

James pushed to his feet, turning to face the frosted windows of the War Room. He rested his hands on his hips. After a moment he rubbed the back of his head then turned back around to face Matty.

“I want him to meet me for lunch,” he declared. “Fridays.”

Matty’s eyebrows went up. “Have you told _him_ that?”

“I want you to pass on the message,” James said, slightly hesitant.

“You want me to tell your son that you want to meet him for lunch on Fridays,” she repeated, her voice flat.

James looked down and away. “It will sound better coming from you. You know him. You know how talk to him.”

It took everything in her power for Matty to not roll her eyes. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said by way of agreeing. It seemed she was destined to work _around_ the men on this team, rather than with them. “Is there anything else?”

James exhaled, nodding. “One more thing.” He reached into the carrying case he’d brought with him and set next to the paperclip bowl on the table. Pulling out a TAC vest he set it on the table and closed the case. “I want you to give this to him.”

Matty frowned. “A TAC vest?”

“I had it refitted for him,” he revealed. “It has lightweight reinforced Kevlar and includes the critical EOD tools that he uses on a regular basis.” He pulled out a folded piece of paper, handing it to Matty. “Make sure you put this with it.”

Matty studied the man across from her for a moment. Mac never needed someone to fast-track his application to MIT or to ensure he was assigned to a specific EOD team or connect him with Jack Dalton or secure his position as a government agent with the DXS. He didn’t need specialized equipment and remote observation.

He’d needed his _father_. But Matty was afraid James had waited too long to realize that fact.

“I’ll give it to him,” she promised. “But he’s going to be in the hospital a few more days.”

James frowned. “I thought you said he was recovering.”

“He has a _grade 3_ concussion, James,” Matty reminded the elder MacGyver. “That’s not something he’s going to just bounce back from.”

“Right,” James nodded. “Well, keep me updated.”

With those words, he collected his carrying case and exited the War Room leaving Matty to shake her head in his wake. She unfolded the paper James had handed her, reading the note written in the man’s neat, block handwriting—so like his son’s.

 _The human mind is an incredible thing. It can conceive of the magnificence of the heavens and the intricacies of the basic concepts of matter. Yet for each mind to achieve its full potential, it needs a spark. The spark of enquiry and wonder._ Stephen Hawking.

“Men,” she muttered.

* * *

 

Two days later, Matty joined their little family of misfits at Mac’s house—the group collectively agreeing that his back deck was the safest place for dinner from now on—to celebrate his release from the hospital. The earthquake that had turned downtown L.A. inside out had luckily barely shaken the houses in Mac’s neighborhood. Bozer reported some glasses falling from the cabinets, pictures off the wall, but no true structural damage.

Which was good; Mac needed some solid ground right now.

Riley let her into the house and she handed the young hacker a bottle of wine.

“I’ll pour some of this,” Riley grinned. “Jack and Bozer are on the deck grilling…something.” She shook her head. “Mac’s in the living room.”

“Can I have a minute with him?” Matty asked.

Riley smiled and nodded. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll just tell the guys.”

Matty made her way to the living room, where she saw Mac sitting on the couch. He wore a loose, gray MIT T-shirt with black sweatpants, and his feet bare. His right arm was still bandaged and resting in a sling. The side of his face was bruised, stitches walking up the side of his head like an army of black ants.

Someone had tucked pillows on either side of him and, to Matty, he seemed just one step away from being smothered in bubble wrap.

“Hey, Matty,” he grinned as she walked in, and braced to stand.

“Ah,” she held up a hand. “Don’t move. I’m pretty sure Dalton would draw and quarter me if I disrupted his little…pillow fort.”

Mac sank back against the couch with a grin. “Actually, this was Bozer,” he revealed. He pointed toward the TV behind her “ _That_ was Jack.”

Matty turned to look. The TV had been covered up with a sheet. “Let me guess, limited electronic usage?”

“For seventy-two hours,” Mac nodded, sounding exasperated. “It’s torture.”

Matty rolled her eyes. “I’m guessing it’s better than getting a migraine because you wore out your bruised brain, though.”

Mac tipped his head, offering her a disarming grin. He held up an iPod. “Riley downloaded some audio books for me,” he showed her the list that Riley had written down for him.

“ _A Brief History of Time_ , _The Elegant Universe_ , _Astrophysics for People in a Hurry_ ,” she read, grinning. “Looks like someone knows you pretty well.”

“I’ve already read them, but they’re some of my favorites,” Mac nodded.

Matty sat on the coffee table in front of Mac, her bag at her feet. “I have a message from someone who’d like to know you better.”

Mac’s eyebrows went up, but he waited patiently for her to continue. She first handed him the folded paper James had given her. Mac frowned, taking it. The minute he opened it, though, she saw his expression change from neutral curiosity to pained betrayal and finally to closed-off anger.

“Hawking,” Mac shook his head. He was too busy trying to bore holes in the paper with his glare to notice Jack slip into the back of the room, standing just off to the side, in the shadows; Matty noticed him and chose to ignore him. “Does he even know why Hawking might mean something to me, or did he just pick a physicist at random?”

Matty lifted a shoulder. “It’s hard to say,” she confessed. “But…he wants a chance.”

Mac huffed, his tone brittle. “For what?”

“Well, to get to know why Hawking might mean something to you, for one.”

Mac narrowed his eyes. “And he sent you to do his dirty work.”

“No,” Matty tilted her head. “He asked me for a favor.”

“Same difference,” Mac muttered, crumpling the paper into a tight ball and throwing it in Jack’s direction without looking.

Matty pulled the TAC vest from her bag and laid it in Mac’s lap.

“What’s this?”

“He’s been watching the recordings of your missions—the ones where you were able to wear the biometric vests, at any rate,” Matty told him. “He saw what happened in Belize.”

Mac let his fingers trace the redesigned TAC vest, skimming over the slim pockets. He opened one and pulled out a set of crimpers.

“EOD tools,” he said softly.

“Look in the one above that,” Matty suggested.

Mac opened the smaller pocket and pulled out four paperclips. He huffed an exasperated laugh.

“He wants you to consider meeting him for lunch on Fridays,” Matty informed him.

Mac shook his head, his eyes on the vest. Matty shifted her glance to the corner, meeting Jack’s eyes. The other man stayed where he was, watching Mac.

“What’s he think that’s gonna fix?” Mac asked, his voice pitched low.

Matty sighed. “Maybe it won’t fix anything,” she offered. “Maybe it’ll start something else.”

Mac looked up and she saw tears shining in his eyes. She thought of how far away he’d gone just to find somewhere to breathe—somewhere untouched by his father’s control. She thought of how much he’d left behind just to get that distance, to get some semblance of control over his life. She thought of watching the video from Belize and thinking of how Jack had been trying so hard to get their rhythm back, Mac untethered and drowning.

“But, it’s _your_ choice, Mac,” she asserted, bringing his eyes up in surprise. “This isn’t about what your…what Oversight wants. It’s about what _you_ want. And you can take as long as you need to figure that out.” His father had had almost fifteen years, after all.

“What do you think?” Mac asked, but his voice was pitched louder. She frowned in confusion for a moment before Jack stepped forward.

“I think Matty’s right,” Jack said. “I think it’s your choice.”

Matty sat back in surprise. Mac had known Jack was there the whole time. And, based on Jack’s expression, the older man had known Mac knew. He’d simply been standing by, waiting until Mac reached out.

“You said he’s watching our missions?” Mac asked, eyes on Matty.

She nodded. “He didn’t come out and say it, but,” she glanced up at Jack as he settled on the arm of the couch, his hip near Mac’s shoulder. “I think he’s trying to figure out how you two work.”

“You mean because he thinks he put us together?” Mac asked. “He wants to know how to make lightning strike twice.”

“Maybe,” Matty said, conceding that point. “Or, maybe he just wants to understand your connection better.”

Mac slid the TAC vest from his lap to the couch next to him, but kept hold of the paperclips, bending and twisting the metal absentmindedly. “He’ll never understand it,” Mac predicted. “He _can’t_. It’s not in him because it requires looking at the world through someone else’s eyes. Finding something…more important that his own agenda. And…if that were possible for him,” Mac shook his head, “he’d never have left me in the first place.”

Matty didn’t respond. She couldn’t. Everything the young agent in front of her said was true. Instead, she watched his fingers reform the paperclips.

“Y’know what, though?” Mac continued. “It’s okay. He doesn’t have to understand. I don’t need him to. Not anymore.” He looked up, past Matty, gaze drawn to the shaded window and the muted light seeping into the living room. “For the longest time…I thought that he was missing from my life. I thought…I thought there was this…this _hole_ inside of me that needed to be filled. A reason why everyone left me. Like I had something malfunctioning.”

Jack dropped a hand on Mac’s left shoulder. Matty was surprised when the man stayed silent.

“But…even though there’s a lot of stuff messed up in my head…a lot of pieces that don’t always have a place to fit…now I know, _I’m_ not the one who’s broken. Not about this,” Mac shook his head, setting down the paperclip sculpture on top of the TAC vest. It was a parachute. “He is. And he’s the only one with the tools to fix himself.”

Matty nodded, her eyes on the paperclip parachute.

“You got that right, brother,” Jack said quietly, squeezing Mac’s shoulder in solidarity.

“Okay, who’s hungry?” called Bozer from the deck. “’Cause I got a dozen burgers and no carnivores!”

“You good?” Jack asked, eyes on Mac.

Mac took a quick breath. “I will be.”

“I bet some of Bozer’s burgers will help,” Jack grinned, standing up.

He reached for Mac’s left hand, pulling the young agent to his feet and bracing his elbow until Mac gained his balance.

“You solid?”

Mac nodded, “Yep.”

Jack released his hold, but Matty blinked in surprise when Mac turned his hand to grip Jack.

“Jack,” he said, a quality to his voice that drew both their eyes. Matty watched as Jack’s dark eyes focused on Mac’s face. “I need you to know…no matter what he says—or doesn’t say—we know the truth. You and me.”

Jack swallowed, bringing his chin up, his body tensing as though for a blow. “What are you saying, kid?”

Mac’s grip tightened further, causing Jack to bring his hand back up to brace Mac’s elbow just so that he didn’t unbalance them both.

“We know who’s always there to catch me, and who I’ll walk through hell for,” Mac said. “Nothing else matters.”

Jack gave Mac a soft grin. “I got you, brother.”

Mac nodded, then released his hold, allowing Jack to guide him around the table before turning him loose to make his way slowly to the deck. Matty saw Bozer greet him with a grin and a pair of sunglasses to shield his bruised brain from the bright, L.A. sun.

Still walking as though his legs were made of glass, Mac stepped onto the deck, taking a water bottle from Riley—with the obligatory complaint that it was a little transparent for beer. He sat carefully on one of the deck chairs and Matty heard him tease Bozer about finally treating him the way he deserved as Bozer brought him a plate piled high with a burger and potato chips.

“He’ll be okay, Jack,” Matty said quietly, picking up the paperclip sculpture. “He’s not in the hurt locker anymore.”

Jack glanced at her, surprise ghosting his expression. “I hope so,” he sighed. “I don’t want him to get lost inside himself again.”

“He won’t,” Matty stood up, crossing over to where Jack stood, staring out at the deck and the three young agents laughing together. She grabbed Jack’s hand and set the paperclip parachute in his palm. “You won’t let him.”

Jack looked down at the sculpture in his hand and chuckled. “That’s our boy.”

Matty watched him tuck the parachute sculpture into his jean’s pocket, then square his shoulders, heading to the deck with a boisterous declaration of being hungry enough to eat every burger there. Riley immediately wrapped him up in a hug, Bozer handed him a plate, and Mac nodded toward the chair next to him, a sunny grin relaxing his features.

In that moment, Matty Webber finally saw the whole board. With a smile of her own, she headed toward her family of capable misfits. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **  
>  **A/N** : Thank you so much for reading--I really hope you enjoyed, and I'd love to hear from you. Incidentally, I _have_ read Stephen Hawking’s _A Brief History of Time_ and Neil Degrasse Tyson’s _Astrophysics for People in a Hurry_ (one in college, and one out of curiosity) and even though I only understood about 62% percent of them, they seemed like books Mac would enjoy. The Stephen Hawking quote James puts in Mac’s TAC vest gift is from Hawking’s book, _Brief Answers to the Big Questions_. My daughter (who is 12) loves that book and has that quote on a whiteboard in her room.
> 
> One more thing. I may be hitting the pause button on fanfic for a _little_ while. I’ve been saying I’m going to write my original story, _Kill Creek Road_ , for years. Like, literally _years_. But, for reasons too esoteric to explore in an author’s note, I continuously find myself retreating into the safety and enjoyment that is fanfic. A few things transpired recently that caused both my husband and a good friend to challenge me to finish a draft. I’m now on a bit of a mission to get a draft of my book completed. Um…wish me luck?


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